Say what, now!?

"You're in menopause." I sat in the doctor's office on the exam chair, trying to keep my butt in place on slippery paper that never seems to stay put. I was cold, which was odd. I'm hardly ever cold these days. The words swam through my ears and bounced around. I stared at the plain white walls filled with various prescription drugs for mature folks. Vaginal reconstruction, weight management, and other drugs to keep women feeling young and vibrant.

I stared at her as if completely unaware of the words that had just come out of her mouth. I'm only forty-three. Did she miss the memo when it was confirmed that forty is the new twenty?

"Did you hear me?"

I must have looked like I needed some fancy hearing aids to go with my granny panties and vaginal reconstruction. I heard her trying to get through to me, but I sat there, shuffling around on that damn protection paper.

"Brooke?" She leaned forward and looked me square in the eye.

She must have been twenty-five with her glowing tan skin, freckled cheeks, rose-stained lips, and majestic eyes. This girl had no idea what crow's feet were, and she wouldn't know for decades to come.

"Uh-huh," I respond, dazed and bewildered.

"You are in menopause," she repeated.

That's the news I received today. Yesterday, I was young and perky. Today, I am mature and in need of hormones that my body can't produce anymore. It's one thing to feel like you're not yourself at times. That happens. But you get to decide when you're not feeling yourself, and you get to decide when to snap yourself back into place.

But to be told you're not yourself. It's like that scene from Mean Girls. You know the one...the main character is the meanest of the mean girls. She starts eating what she thinks are weight-loss protein bars, but not soon enough, finds out they are actually supporting the growth of her ass and thighs. She goes to school one day, in sweatpants, and that is the sacrificial no-no. When attempting to sit with her so-called friends, a scream from one of the other girls pierces the air, "YOU CAN'T SIT WITH US!!"

That's what menopause is. She's a mean girl.

The doctor might as well have told me that I have been on the bus through young and sexy land for long enough and now it's time to exit at retirement row - that sucks.

All joking aside. It was hard to hear that I am officially in menopause and it does bring up questions that I don't know how to answer. Am I still sexy? What's going to happen to my body now that I don't produce all the hormones my body needs? Do I need to start worrying about my health? Do I have to start shopping at Chico's? Would that be so bad? - I actually kind of like their stuff. Osteoporosis - that wasn't a thing until this morning! Do I need to worry about that? Do I want vaginal reconstruction?

For the past few weeks, we have been talking about trauma, triggers, and how to sit with emotions that are hard to feel. I had to take a break from that to talk about this!

Because this topic is a different type of trigger. It triggers thoughts and concerns about the future - things we have not yet done, while trauma triggers are painful passages to the past.

I think that we need to be gentle with ourselves when we reach this point in our lives. While it's not easy to be told that you literally can not get pregnant ever again,

there is still space for us to be gracious with ourselves. We need to sit with those feelings and let them flow through us because just like emotions stirred up from trauma deserve to be heard, so do these feelings.

So, whatever menopause means to you, be nice to yourself. Don't be one of those mean girls. Let yourself sit with you at the lunch table.

On a parting note, I can honestly say that Victoria's Secret sells some of the most comfortable granny panties, and now I don't have to hide the fact that I love them anymore - because I'm in menopause!