Chapter 3
You don’t understand what’s happening to you.
You went to the bathroom at the grocery store, which isn’t something you usually do.
It was unfamiliar and a bit ominous, the industrial-gray walls and flickering fluorescent lights.
Fear began to bubble in your bloodstream.
The bathroom looked like a place where someone would be murdered.
Why had you come in here? You never go to the bathroom in stores!
You did your business, legs trembling from the effort of crouching over the seat, because didn’t someone say you could catch an STD from a public toilet? You flushed, then left the stall, the metal door slamming against the wall with a bang, making you jump.
Then you jerked to a stop. There was another woman here, and she also looked scared. Terrified, really. Her hair was messy, and there were shadows under her eyes, which were open a little too wide. Her mouth was clamped as if suppressing a whimper.
So there was something to be afraid of.
“Are you okay?” you asked in concern, and, freakishly, the woman asked you the same thing at the same time.
“Wow,” you both said, again in unison, then each of you gasped a little.
“Did you just—” Again, same words, exact same time. You blinked at each other, astonished.
A cold flash of anger hit you out of nowhere.
What the hell was this? How could this woman know exactly what you were about to say?
It was like a creepy movie, except it was happening to you.
Your heart thudded against your chest wall, and though you’d just peed, your bladder threatened to release in fear.
“I’m gonna go now,” you both said, then, immediately: “Stop it!”
What the hell? “Why are you doing this to me?” you/she shouted.
How could the other woman be in your mind?
How could she know exactly what to say and when, and with the same tone and expression?
Was this an alien thing? Should you scream?
Would the other woman scream at the same time?
Someone would come, right? Someone would help you.
Or maybe someone would help her and kill you.
You bolted toward the door, and the other woman did the same thing. You stopped, frozen in terror. The other woman stopped, too.
Then, slowly, another scenario began to dawn. Another explanation. One much more pedestrian than an alien or a murderer.
The woman was . . . you. Your reflection, to be exact. There was a long, low-quality mirror that stretched over the six sinks of the bathroom.
You hadn’t known your own face.
A few weeks later, you can almost think it was funny. I am so tired I can’t even recognize my own face these days! Right? Know what I mean?
But then you notice how much you’re forgetting.
Words. “Where’s my . . .” Thing. Where’s your thing that holds coffee or water when you leave the house?
The vessel made to keep liquid hot or cold?
The word dances out of reach, taunting you.
You know everything about it except its name.
The vessel thing. Vase. Nope, not that. It starts with a T, your mind tells you, like it’s a game.
A teacup? No, but close. A Tetris? (Where did that come from? Come on!)
A thermos. A thermos. Phew.
You notice you get distracted easily. One day, you’re reading recipes, wondering what to make for dinner, then realize you turned on the shower an hour ago and just wandered off. Now there’s no hot water.
You bring it up with a friend or two, and they’re all experiencing the same thing. “I couldn’t remember the word for washing machine!” one cries merrily. “I could not for the life of me think of the word. I finally said, ‘spinny thing for clothes,’ and my husband laughed so hard.”
You’re reassured. It’s stress. You’re tired, that’s all.
Isn’t everyone? And God, you have reason to be stressed and tired!
The state of the world, keeping up with everything—appointments and meetings and work, getting the refrigerator fixed, sending flowers to what’s-her-name whose dog died.
You go online and read about stress and bad sleep, and how they both can create these forgetful moments.
Can’t find your phone? Totally normal. Don’t remember you already watched that show?
Join the club. Went into a room and forgot why? Hello! We all do it.
Get a solid eight hours and you’ll be back to your old self, the literature says.
Okay then. You buy over-the-counter sleep aids, and they work well enough.
But then you find that you’ve left the freezer door open for the past eight hours, and everything is melted and soggy (except the vodka, so at least there’s that).
You go back to Google. Aha! Perimenopause, part of the superdeluxe package that comes with being female.
You’re the right age, so that explains it.
Hormones charging around like a herd of kittens, out of control.
Just more of the endless ignominies women endure simply for being women.
(Ignominies? What does that mean? How do you pronounce it?
You just thought the word, and now you have no idea what it means.)
Anyway. Being female, your body’s been torturing you since you were eleven and a half.
At forty, you started noticing something new on your face every week .
. . a whisker, a wrinkle, an age spot. And here comes perimenopause with its crappy gifts.
The Johns Hopkins website lists twelve symptoms. You have eight of them.
Yes, you’re on the younger end of the age range, but the symptoms are spot-on.
Mood changes, lack of sexual interest, trouble concentrating, problems remembering things, headaches, joint and muscle aches, brain fog, trouble with sleep. Great.
So you see your gynecologist. She tells you to meditate, exercise, drink raspberry and black cohosh teas, cut back on the wine.
You sigh, but you do it. You take brisk walks and do hot yoga.
You stop eating red meat and limit your ice cream consumption to once a week.
You go to a homeopath, who puts you on a handful of pills with flowery names, some of which sound poisonous (arsenicum?
belladonna?). Maybe you’re feeling a little better? Maybe it’s helping?
You tell yourself it is. You’re fine. You’ll be fine. It’s all totally normal.
More or less.