I've been thinking back to my pre-hysterectomy days (why it isn't called a hersterectomy, I really don't know!), trying to compare myself then to now. I can't think of many pluses of being past the menopause. Then, my hair was thick and glossy. Now it's brittle, dry and much less thick. Oh, and greyer, too. My skin was, like my mother's, always rather dry but now it's as if I've spent a year being parched in the desert. Despite all the moisturiser I can slather on, I awake to a face that feels as if it's going to crack when I smile. As for my hands, I'm thinking of getting henna tattoos to hide the wrinkly old skin and age spots.
Those areas of skin usually hidden by clothes and exposed only in shorts and swimsuits are now so dimpled with cellulite that they look like close-ups of the surface of the moon. As for those areas... well, I shall only say that anyone who had carnal knowledge of my ageing body would end up feeling as if their parts had gone ten rounds with a piece of the coarsest sandpaper.
So - are there any plusses to being a barren old wrinkly? Hmm. Well, my frequent headaches have stopped, especially those migraines that always coincided with the 'time of the month'. The tampon-induced thrush has ceased, too. That's two ticks. But there's a very large cross beside the libido, which has lambada'd into oblivion. You see, once your ovaries have gone, you're not producing the small amounts of hormones that older women with all their bits intact still have. The gingerbread has lost its ginger, like my once flaming hair. The spice has gone from life, the titillation vanished from the titties. Yet I still experience the occasional flicker in the knicker when watching Sean Bean as Sharpe, or Alan Rickman as just about anyone, so there must be a last misty ghost of a breath still lingering in the lingerie area, smelling of mothballs and pressed petals from old Valentine roses.
