«Chills Mum!»
I only used to know about flushes from my mum, who stood barefoot in the garden even in the depths of winter. The neighbours claimed she smoked cigars there.
In the meantime, I've been hit hard too. I change my body temperature in a matter of seconds. I constantly influence the indoor climate by either opening all the windows to bring in fresh air or standing there like a radiant heater and warming myself and everyone around me. Other women wear pearl necklaces around their necks and wrists, while I shine with beads of sweat on my forehead.
But I'm not the only one responsible for the mood barometer in our household. No, we've planned our children so that the boys' puberty coincides with the menopause. Bingo.
Baby + 15 years = menopause and puberty together
From today's perspective, this planning could have been a little more considered. It would have been helpful to include a note in the package leaflet for the contraceptive pill: "If you want to stop taking the pill and get pregnant, please calculate how old you will be when your child is 15. But who thinks about the puberty of the bundle of joy when it is small and fine in our arms? Let alone your own menopause?
My nerves are very delicate at the moment. I admit that I'm missing my inner serenity. Wrinkles and pounds, everything is increasing. Bibeli on my face as if I were my own son. My daughter, also the purest bag of character, always a different child when she shuffles out of her room towards the kitchen. It's the purest hormonal rollercoaster in our house, doors are slammed and eyes are rolled. I argue and bicker like I'm sixteen, says my seventeen-year-old daughter. About make-up residue in the sink and underwear left in the teen's room. Although these items of underwear are getting smaller and smaller. In terms of fabric. Quasi inversely proportional to mine.
Tidiness in the room is totally overrated, the daughter continues, we have to think globally. About saving the world's oceans and what happens to the sharks. Or with the refugees. The warming of the climate. The latter is a very sensitive topic, not only for the American president, but also for me, after all, I'm always heating up like an old stove.
«Chills, Mum!»
Meanwhile, the son remains in his dark biotope, everything lying around there will one day come to life. And then tidies itself up. And if it doesn't, who cares? The eternal poof in the room and scents that nobody can categorise. Ever since I went through the menopause, I've been allergic to strange odours. And I react to them with an uncontrollable voice. Which breaks at a certain level. So that my two pubescent teenagers imitate me at exactly the same pitch. (Even if they are at loggerheads in the meantime, they join forces here). «Chills mum», they say to me, unnecessary stress that you're spreading.
And this already triggers my next flush. Maybe I should start smoking cigars outside in the snow too.
Picture: Fotolia
