On a damp and foggy morning, I showed up for an all-day silent retreat at a glass-enclosed structure in the woods. I was three-quarters of the way through a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course. A small group of us had been meeting with two facilitators weekly in a time slot no one could make excuses for skipping: Sunday afternoons from 4:00…
I am sitting on the edge of an exam table, a little giddy because I believe I have found an endocrinologist who will diagnose and treat me for the chronic fatigue, 30-pound weight gain, excruciating migraines, and other symptoms that have been holding me hostage in my own body for years. Seconds later I am weeping, face in my dripping…
With all the warnings about hot flashes, wrinkles, decreased libido, age spots, and so on and so on, nobody ever tells you about the possible fringe benefits of menopause. I don’t recall reading anywhere about the sudden transformation that I experienced when my ovaries halted production. I’d been painfully shy my whole life—I always had a few close friends, but…
