To HRT or Not to HRT

This week’s example of menopausal madness occurred as I was preparing for a work social. Skittles. I don’t mind a bit of skittles and was quite looking forward to it. I live about an hour away from work so social event arrangements generally feel like a military operation, but I’d managed to navigate myself through the first half of the arrangements quite well…

- Decided to travel by train so I could have a little alcoholic beverage, so had googled the train times the night before and worked out what time I’d need in the morning to shower, get ready for work and pack what I need for the evening

- Woke up on time and got in the shower in reasonable time

- Picked out my clothes,. Ones suitable for work, but with some simple switches could segway into casual for evening. - They were clean and ironed- Bonus point

- Drove to station. Remembered all my bags including my laptop - Double Bonus

- Paid my parking - ( Didn’t want another run in with the APCOA parking police - disputing a fine is VERY stressful - Yes, been there , done that …. at least twice) Triple bonus

- Got on the train - hadn’t got ticket but no worries - train manager passed through selling tickets - Yes!

- Got off at the right station - Oh my God! Bossing it!

- Found the bus stop for work ( I’ve used the bus from town about 3 times in 3.5 years and it’s never where it was last time)

- Made it in just after 9 am

Not bad Menopausal Woman…. not bad …. !

My day was pretty normal, until about 4pm when a flurry of emails came in that needed attention. Typical. We had arranged for our immediate team to meet for drinks and food before the main event and I needed to be on the 1645 bus. Quite important because I am not local and I had no idea really where the skittles pub was. However, I knew the location of the pre-drinks pub and waved the others off whilst I finalised work things.

All done I realised I was getting late for the next bus. I hurriedly packed everything away and headed for the loos to put my jeans on, and to titivate my hair and make up.

TBH, when I find I am in hurry, this is when things start to go wrong and my brain malfunctions.

It’s a small loo, and I had 3 large bags. Yes, I know - schoolgirl error. I swap trousers for jeans, swap heels for pumps, find make-up bag, hairbrush and hairspray. Not too complicated you may say, but for some reason, to me it was a bit like one of those tile or wooden block games when you have to shift everything out of order to get everything to fit back together again neatly. It took way longer than I had expected. I was getting flustered. I rushed out to see the bus waiting and several people running to get on, so I joined them…..

I was chuffed I had made it and sat down, still with my 3 bags ( #winning). Then I heard my name being called from behind me.

I looked around and there was lovely Claire, our Department Admin Manager beaming at me.

‘

Hi Claire’, I called, assuming Claire wanted me to sit with her..…

‘This bus is going to the Park and Ride…! Did you want to go to the Park and Ride? (Knowing full well I didn’t but being too polite to say it).

Oh shit! No!!!!!!!!

The bus started to pull away from the stop.

‘Hang-on!!!!! Stop!!!!! Wrong bus!!! ‘ I squealed.

Thankfully the driver heard me and I gathered my bags and stumbled off the bus again whilst everyone sniggered and chortled. Stupid incompetent woman! I had to agree. Thankfully, the city centre bus came within seconds and I boarded it, even more flustered than I had been before.

I decided to text Claire to thank her for looking out for me. I reached into my handbag, only …….

I couldn’t find my phone……

My handbag is like the deepest pit of hell. I am forever rummaging through for important things like keys, purse, phone, only to find stray peppermints, tampax, teepees and other detritus. Rummage some more … Nope- still no phone.

Panic started to rise. Fuck!

I started to empty out my handbag on the bus seat. I didn’t really care that 4 of the largest 'Always' sanitary towels (for those days when it feels like you are literally shedding pints of chopped liver) were strewn across the seat shouting at everybody.

Look at me! Look at me! She’s on the blob!!!”

I suppose I should have felt quite smug. See! I'm still young enough to have periods!

Sunglasses; building society book ( who uses those anymore). Business cards, umbrella…..receipts from 2017….. but no phone…..……

I checked my other bag - Trousers; Shoes; Hairbrush; Hairspray…..A ticket for rugby at Twickenham from last month. Sand from our last holiday in Cyprus…….

But still no phone.

A horrible sick feeling. Who can I phone…. ? Er no-one you idiot….

When I reached the pub, everyone was there and I arrived in classic menopausal woman style. Bursting through the door, loud and anxious, apologising to every inanimate object, interrupting the conversation and generally attracting way more attention than I needed to.

‘Anyone, want a drink,? Anyone want a drink? !’,

‘Er no we’re good thanks.”.

‘What time are we leaving here?

What? 7 mins?

Shit. A Sauvignon would be perfect right now. But I say….

‘No worries…. I'll wait until we get to the restaurant.’

‘Can I borrow someone’s phone?’ I plead, anxiety making sound like a whiny 4 year old.

Everyone looks blankly at each other, but lovely Ben rescues me and I start phoning anyone I can think of that might still be in the office.

Nope - just voicemails.

I can’t stop myself engaging people in discussion about my missing phone. I can tell they want me to shut the fuck up and get over it, but I can’t help myself. Until we finally get to the Pizza place ( not really a fan of pizza TBH but I'm not a fussy eater anymore) and ordered my Sauvignon. The anxiety about my phone started to dissipate and I began to engage with the evening.

Skittles itself was great fun, even though my performance was shocking. I’m not competitive ( Oh yes I am!) and my first two scores were more than a little challenging to my ego. I didn’t think it was possible to score ’1’ and ‘0’ before that night, but I think even I managed to pull off a sporting ‘It’s the taking part’ vibe…..

Back to the station on time for the last train, Got on the right train.

‘Nothing’s gonna stop me now’, sang my sauvignon fuelled, calcified brain.

One last look for that phone, I thought.

No still nothing.

And then… for some reason I decided to take a look in my laptop bag.

Never put my phone in there so pointless really …..

And there it was….

So today I finally made that appointment. I am NOT the idiot the world is seeing at the moment and I AM going to get my life back to normality.

3 weeks …..I can’t wait. I literally cannot wait. Let’s hope I can make it through with some form of dignity left. ……