Woman, 45, Condition Unclear

I think I might be in perimenopause.

Or am I just in the middle of life?

Or is it the burnout acting up again?

It’s not that I’m short on symptoms.

It’s that I have too many possible explanations for them.

I’m tired.

Could be perimenopause.

Could also be because I’m burned out.

I struggle to concentrate and forget words. I can walk into a room with absolutely no idea why I’m there.

Even worse is when I’m having a conversation with someone, neither of us is quite sure about something, and I say I’ll look it up on my phone.

By the time I have the phone in my hand, I can’t remember what I was supposed to look up.

Sometimes I can’t even remember what we were talking about.

A memory like a sieve is a familiar concept.

This is something else entirely.

Perimenopause, apparently.

Or burnout.

I sleep badly.

Hormones. Stress. Depression.

Or maybe I’m simply a 45-year-old woman who, for reasons unknown, wakes up at 4:17 a.m. and decides this is an excellent time to wonder where the warranty for the dishwasher is.

It’s difficult to diagnose yourself under these conditions.

So I did the only reasonable thing.

I Googled it.

I should not have done that.

Because according to the internet, the symptoms of perimenopause are roughly as follows:

Fatigue. Sleep problems. Brain fog. Low mood. Anxiety. Difficulty concentrating. Memory problems. Heart palpitations. Hot flashes. Night sweats. Changes to your period. Lower sex drive. Higher sex drive. Muscle aches. Dizziness.

After a while, I started wondering whether there is anything that isn’t perimenopause.

Neck pain?

Probably estrogen.

Forgot your Netflix password?

Ovaries.

Suddenly think people on the internet seem unusually stupid?

Hormonal.

The problem is that my life over the past few years hasn’t exactly provided ideal conditions for a controlled study.

My body has already hit the wall and pulled the emergency brake.

On top of that, I had a bout of depression, which felt slightly unnecessary considering I thought we already had quite enough going on.

And as if it wasn’t difficult enough to work out what was causing what, both of my children moved out.

Within three months.

Both of them.

Then one moved back in.

And now she’s moved out again.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, I became a grandmother.

Grandmother.

It’s a wonderful word when it refers to my granddaughter.

It’s a considerably more questionable word when it refers to me.

In my head, a grandmother is still someone who has crocheted doilies under glass ornaments, a bowl of hard candies on the table, and knows how to make homemade cordial.

I have absolutely no idea how to make cordial.

I have, however, been informed by my optician that I need to accept that I will need progressive lenses.

Eventually.

So the universe doesn’t seem particularly interested in hearing my objections.

And I’m living on “eventually.”

Because eventually is not now.

The most obvious clue should, of course, be my period.

Which brings us to the next problem.

I have a hormonal IUD.

The lowest possible dose of hormones, admittedly, but enough that my period stopped being a reliable source of information a long time ago.

So here I am.

No period to interrogate.

With a burned-out brain. A depression in my luggage. Children moving in and out as though my home were an Airbnb with an unusually generous cancellation policy.

And a body that may or may not be entering an entirely new hormonal era.

I tried to find one symptom that might settle the matter.

Irritability and aggression came up fairly quickly.

That actually made me feel a little hopeful.

Because I’m not particularly angry.

I don’t walk around snapping at my husband.

I haven’t started throwing things.

Nor have I developed a sudden urge to quit my job, buy a stone house in Tuscany and count grapevines.

This seemed promising.

I almost started regarding my good mood as a medical finding.

Then, of course, it turned out that you don’t actually have to be irritable to be in perimenopause.

There went my only alibi.

So I still don’t know.

Maybe it’s hormones.

Maybe it’s burnout.

Maybe it’s the aftermath of a few years that contained considerably more plot than I ordered.

Or maybe it’s just me.

And somehow, that’s the possibility I find most annoying.

Because somewhere along the way, I’ve been waiting to become myself again.

As though the person I was before all of this is still parked somewhere, simply waiting for me to get enough rest to go and pick her up.

But what if she isn’t?

What if this actually is me now?

Not burned-out me. Not hormonal me. Not some temporary version of myself that will eventually pass if I just sleep properly, start exercising, get my life in order or find the right supplement on the internet.

Just me.

That feels slightly rude, actually.

I would have appreciated being informed that apparently you can change in the middle of your life without first being asked to approve the new version.

I’d like to end this with some wise conclusion.

Something about embracing the woman I’ve become in midlife.

But I’m too tired.

Could be perimenopause.