I have always wanted to be old. I have been waiting all my life to become old.
I did not find youth easy. Perhaps I was born old. Until society succeeded in cowing me, I was a rageful child. I didn't fit it, but I learned to suppress my weirdnesses and assimilate. I was born restless and agitated, but I didn't find the words for my rage until I was much older, in my 20s, and more fully in my 30s and 40s. I still cultivate sacred rage as a kind of superpower. Sacred rage emerges from insight, seeing through things, finding truth that contradicts what we've been told.
One thing I was taught, by everyone--my mother and her sisters, by both mainstream and alternative media, by society and across cultures--is that women depreciate in value as we age. By all means possible, we should strive to be young. Facial creams, hair dyes, plastic surgery, lying about our age, special wardrobes....all become necessary to prevent the ravages of aging.
Is it any wonder that so many women struggle painfully with perimenopause and menopause? The end of our childbearing years throws us, according to the model of the triune goddesses, from maiden, to mother, to, finally, crone.
We don't even like the word crone. Western culture tends to characterize crones as kin to witches and evil stepmothers. European fairy tales and Disney sure don't help. But we must reclaim the status, magic, power, and majesty of the crone.
This doesn't happen overnight. The power of the crone begins decades earlier. It started, for me, with my pregnancies and childbirths, embracing the power of motherhood, and learning to trust my own body. It ripened further as my relationship to menstruation evolved, from shame and denial, to honoring it.
Iyengar Yoga practice taught me how to befriend my period. Counterculturally, I learned to honor it as a time of introspection and rest, and to allow and encourage the flow, instead of suppressing it. I learned to read the discomforts--of cramps, headaches, or crankiness--as messages from my body to change my behavior and prioritize my well-being. I learned how to support the hormonal changes, and encourage my uterus to expel its lining, instead of fighting against the physiology, or simply medicating my discomfort. Learning the menstrual practice profoundly shaped how I would experience perimenopause.
I admit I may not be the average 62 year-old. I began a practice of yoga 35 years ago, so by the time I stopped menstruating at age 50, I had 20 years of practice under my belt. This practice includes lots of time upside down, promoting circulation, physiological health, and hormonal balance. For me, perimenopause was not that eventful. Yes, I had irregular periods, erratic flow, and some very heavy sheddings, including a few embarrassing episodes of bleeding through my clothes. But to me, these were relatively minor inconveniences.
Except for a year after college, before my first child was born, my work schedule was always variable. I chose not to work a 40-hour, 9-5 job, and instead, chose the flexibility of independent contracting, as a working artist, and later, as an Iyengar Yoga instructor. After my divorce, at age 49, when I became financially independent, I accepted that economic uncertainty, including periods of poverty, was the price I paid for flexibility.
I had time to take care of myself. As a young mother, by the time I reached perimenopause, my 3 children were all grown and out of the house. Leaving my marriage, I also freed myself from householding and "wifing." I had earned my freedom, and shed the constraints associated with caregiving and householding. Of course I also lost my privileges, but I had long renounced most of them anyway.
Some of the struggles associated with menopause and perimenopause didn't pertain to me. Sleepless? Turn on a lamp and read a book. Tired in the middle of the day? Take a nap. Hot flash? Throw off the covers. Don't get me wrong, I still had plenty of obligations. Nevertheless I structured my life such that I could prioritize my own well-being.
I do recognize that I've lost some strength in my bones and muscles. Yesterday my 8 and 6 year-old grandkids and I put on an entire show to the soundtrack of K-Pop Demon Hunters. I was exhausted because I starred in the show, along with 8 year-old Coco, and she made me be in every dance. Afterwards, I laid down on the floor and said, "OK, let's rest." Of course my grandkids were not having it, nor needing rest.
For the first 7 years after my last menstrual cycle, I had very few symptoms of menopause. In 2020-2021 (remember the COVID-19 lockdown?) my body went through a whole litany of injuries, no doubt exacerbated by stress: plantar fascitis, sacral instability, hip pain, sciatica, knee pain, and hamstring injuries. Each injury taught me more than any seminar could, on how to heal myself. I did manage to heal from all these conditions, and it made me a better, more compassionate and effective teacher.
I believe I had accrued enough strength pre-cronehood to carry me through some years post-menopause without much fuss. But the conditions of COVID weakened me overall and allowed anatomical imbalances to arise. I learned from these injuries that I need to emphasize strength-building and stabilizing as I age.
Most of all I recognize cronehood as the most incredibly rich and rewarding stage of my life. I tell younger friends: Your 30s are better than your 20s. Your 40s will be better than your 30s. Your 50s even better, and the 60s are the best of all. Beyond my 60s, I continue to expect the best.
Why do I celebrate cronehood? Because I have no fucks to give anymore. On TikTok or Instagram you can find @justbeingmelani and join her We Do Not Care Club for menopausal and perimenopausal women. Here I found soul sisters to laugh with for hours! But it's not light humor. This is powerful, subversive humor, declaring that the patriarchy no longer has any hold on us. The pressures of society--to be beautiful, young, polite, self-sacrificing, submissive, and more--have become utterly insignificant. That is the true beauty of cronehood.
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