As much as I’d like to think I’m going to stay youthful forever, the fact is, women go through menopause, or as many call it, “their changes.”

For men who have never been enlightened on the subject (due to the fact that even though every woman since the dawn of time has menstruated, we’re taught to feel ashamed of it because God forbid we talk openly and make boys and men feel uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable, even though we’re the ones actually experiencing the physical discomfort of cramping that comes along with the monthly shedding of the uterus). But I digress…

Let me start again.

For men who have never been enlightened on the subject of menopause, it’s when you stop getting your period after turning a certain age.

It doesn’t happen all at once. Pre-menopause, or “your changes” is when the body begins preparing for menopause.

Symptoms are: hot flashes, or being freezing cold, or feeling overly emotional, etc. – all things that have to do with the extreme fluctuation of hormones.

Every time I’m hot, cold, or tired, around my mother, she loves to tell me she thinks I’m going through my changes.

For instance, I’ll get home from work and I’m beat.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m tired,”

“I bet you’re going through your changesss…”said in an almost singsong-y voice with an oddly smug look on her face.

Or

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m hot.”

“I bet you’re starting your changesss…”

Or I’m in a bad mood.

“Changessss…”

She’s not wrong, I probably am. I’m 46, and most nights I wake up sweating like a devout Christian in science class.

But why the joy?

She’s the one who taught me about “the changes”, and how it makes your skin get dry and you shrivel up like a prune. But she also shared how all the women in her family went through it much, much, later in life.

So every time she’d seem to be mocking me about going through it in my forties, I never said anything.

However, after a few glasses of wine at Christmas dinner, I mentioned I was hot (probably because she keeps her house at 85 degrees), and then looked at her and said, “And it’s not because I’m going through my changesssss!!”

You know what she did? She laughed right in my face!

I’ve been accused of picking on my mother, (mostly by her), but don’t you worry, she’s not the sweet little grandma everyone thinks she is. She’s got that vindictive Italian streak in her that finds pleasure in telling her pain-in-the ass daughter that she will soon be a shriveled up old prune.

I should stop now. She’s making rice balls and now she probably won’t give me any.