I am a middle-aged woman. I’m thinking about being in the middle of everything now. I am in the middle of perimenopause, which is finally having a moment in the zeitgeist but I will tell you this: don’t believe the hype. It’s wildly overrated. I was hoping perimenopause would leave me feeling like a rock star because even Oprah Winfrey came back to network television for a special about it but all I feel is awful a lot of the time. Tired, confused, anxious, sweaty, bloated, furry.
I am also finding these middle years are tinged with new regrets. Things I did in my younger years that I would give anything to change now. All of those times I lost my cool with my young kids in the early days, the fights I had with my mom that meant nothing to me then and broke her heart in a million pieces. That time I shaved one side of my head and kept the other side way too long and thought I looked incredible. Stirrup pants. Plucking my eyebrows too much.
I’m also regretting things I didn’t do or didn’t try. For starters: being intimate with a woman. Never in my life have I kissed a woman or been kissed by a woman, touched a woman or had sex with a woman. None of it. Which makes me feel a bit ridiculous and out of touch, like one of those people who refuse to try new food because they’re scared of it.
I’m not sure if, in the past, I just didn’t want to have sex with women or I didn’t know I was allowed to want to. But now I feel regret — that maybe that time passed by and it’s too late.
I grew up a Gen Xer raised by Baby Boomers. The Me generation who sort of did everything before us, all the experimenting and the chic drugs and the strong fashion choices. By the time my generation was born we were a bit of an afterthought. Kids left to watch episodes of Three’s Company after school and eat entire sleeves of buttered Premium Plus crackers while our parents were off being the main characters of everyone’s stories somewhere. We never knew where, it wasn’t our business. Their lives were not our business. I don’t even know if our lives felt like our business. Our jobs as Gen X kids was to be in the other room watching television. Reading books if we felt like it. Rummaging around in last night’s trash for a generational identity because our parents had already used up all the good stuff.
I didn’t know that I was allowed to think about liking girls when I was young. I didn’t know I was allowed that level of individualism or private thought or self-evaluation. I can’t say I considered it much at all. I know my friendships with the girls in my life were more powerful, more hypnotic, more heartbreaking than any boyfriend of mine. The end of a friendship or a fight or a weekend lost because one of us was grounded felled me like a tree every time. I loved them, I think I was probably in love with some of them, whatever that might have meant, even though I don’t remember being attracted to other girls. Am I even now? Was I even attracted to boys? I don’t think so. I just remember wanting them to think I was attractive.
Now, at the ripe old age of awful perimenopause, I know that’s not quite the same thing. This season of my life has me looking back at those years of front seat gropings from high school boyfriends and wondering if I would have felt differently if I had been with a girlfriend. If I would have batted away at those hands as forcefully, if my mind would have drifted so much, if I was kissing a girl instead of one of those boys. I wonder if I would have felt things more instead of just performing love like it was a story to tell my friends afterwards. Always the best part of any date for me then.
There are those who might tell me it is not too late. I will tell you that they are probably right; definitely right. If I were a different sort of person I might be able to launch myself headfirst into a deep investigation of my sexuality, of the women who might unlock something in me. But I fear I am still just the same person and I am tired, so tired a lot of the time. Too tired to be unlocked. Definitely too tired to unlock someone else. And I will tell you the embarrassing truth behind it all; I can barely give myself an orgasm. I can’t imagine trying to find a new pathway to give another woman an orgasm. Giving men orgasms: this is something I get. Everything about my sexuality has always been geared towards pleasing a man and making sure he doesn’t know if he’s not pleasing me, which is so, so often. This is a dance I can do with my eyes closed.
I’m mostly ready to settle into this next stage with the regular level of exploration I am doing now. I’m reveling in all of the cliches. I am heading out to travel on my own more and more. I have taken up knitting at the local library. My baking repertoire is ever-expanding. I’m pretty good at yoga.
I’m trying new things, new foods, new color palettes. And if I wonder sometimes if I missed out on love with a woman, if I let myself be painted into a corner because I was too lazy or scared or silly to break free and carve out my own path, I’m making my peace with that.
Because now I know myself. I know myself better than anyone. And I think I’ve figured out that this is probably exactly right for me. For now.
