Lately, I haven’t quite felt like myself.

I’m more tired. I don’t sleep the way I used to. I wake up in the middle of the night, and sometimes I just want to keep sleeping. My appetite has changed. There are days when I eat because I know I have to, not because I’m actually hungry. There are moments when I’m more irritable, others when I feel anxious, and others when I simply don’t feel like doing much of anything.

And I started asking myself:

What is happening to me?

Is it stress? Is it anxiety? Is it menopause? Is it everything going on in my life? Or is it a combination of many things?

Because menopause doesn’t happen in a bubble.

Life continues while our bodies are changing.

We still have to work. We still have responsibilities. We still have relationships with other people. We still experience good moments and difficult ones. And anything happening around us — work, a relationship, a worry, an unexpected problem — can affect us emotionally too.

I don’t think we can say that everything we feel comes from menopause.

It can be a combination of many things.

But perhaps the important thing is to start recognizing what is happening.

And that is what I am doing now.

I’m Starting to Pay Attention to What Is Happening to Me

I knew menopause was coming. I had heard about hot flashes and hormonal changes. Women I know had shared some of their own experiences with me.

But hearing about something and actually living it are two completely different things.

Today, while I was walking Lexi, I had a conversation with a 60-year-old woman. I told her about some of the things I have been feeling, and she shared some of her own experience with me.

We talked about sleep. Appetite. Fatigue. Irritability. How not sleeping well can eventually affect so many other parts of our lives.

She even shared one of the little things that is part of her nighttime routine: taking a warm shower and using a soap with melatonin.

Maybe it will work for me. Maybe it won’t.

But our conversation made me think about something much more important:

Why don’t we talk about this more?

Being a Woman Means Getting to Know a Body That Keeps Changing

Sometimes I think about all the hormonal changes women experience throughout our lives.

We get our first period and begin learning how our bodies work. Then we spend years living through cycles, hormonal changes, and emotional and physical changes.

And just when we think we know our bodies pretty well, another stage arrives.

Perimenopause. Menopause.

And once again, we have to learn.

I’m not saying that a woman’s life is more difficult than a man’s. They are different experiences.

But our hormones can be complicated.

And I think it can be difficult to truly understand this stage until you begin living it yourself. I had heard about menopause, I knew women who had gone through it, and I knew that one day it would happen to me. But I couldn’t completely understand what it meant until now, as I am beginning to experience it in my own body.

I imagine it can be even more difficult for many men to understand, and also for people who haven’t gone through this stage yet. They can listen to us, support us, and try to understand, but living it is different.

And that is exactly what is happening to me now: I’m beginning to understand it because I’m living it.

Sometimes even we don’t completely understand everything that is happening while we are going through it.

Because While All of This Is Happening, Life Doesn’t Stop

Maybe that is one of the hardest parts.

You can be trying to understand your body, your emotions, your lack of sleep, or why you have less energy today than you did yesterday, while at the same time dealing with work, relationships, friends, responsibilities, and all the normal problems that come with life.

And everything gets mixed together.

That is why I’m beginning to think that this stage of life also requires a little more calm.

We can’t control everything happening around us, but we can try to create a little more peace in our own lives.

Listen to our bodies.

Rest when we need to.

Ask for help when something doesn’t feel right.

Talk to other women.

And perhaps most importantly, surround ourselves with people who can support us instead of making an already complicated stage of life even more difficult.

At this age, I find myself valuing peace and tranquility more and more.

Every Woman Will Have Her Own Story

We won’t all experience menopause in the same way.

One woman may experience certain symptoms while another experiences completely different ones. Some women may go through it with relatively few changes, while others may feel that their body, sleep, energy, and even emotions have changed tremendously.

But we can also find pieces of ourselves in other women’s experiences.

Maybe it won’t be exactly the same.

But it may be similar.

And sometimes hearing someone say “that happened to me too” can help more than we realize.

That is why I want to write about this.

Not as a doctor.

Not as a specialist.

Simply as a 50-year-old woman who is beginning to understand a new stage of her life.

I don’t have all the answers.

I’m still trying to understand how much of what I’m feeling may be hormonal, how much may be related to the circumstances in my life, and what things might need a little more attention.

But there is one difference:

now I’m seeing it.

Now I’m recognizing it.

Now I’m listening to my body instead of simply pushing forward and ignoring it.

And I know this process will probably be with me for some time.

That is why I want to talk about it.

Because there are women who have already lived through it.

There are women living through it right now.

And there are others who will experience it someday.

Maybe talking more openly about menopause can help us understand that we don’t need to have all the answers right away.

We can learn from our bodies.

We can learn from one another.

We can ask for help.

And we can remember something that, at least for me, is becoming more and more important:

This stage of life is also about finding our peace, protecting our sense of calm, and surrounding ourselves with people who help us hold on to both.