Menopausal Mother

    Most people are familiar with the "Five Stages Of Grief" made popular by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in the early 70's. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance are all part of the grieving process.

     While battling a nasty head cold this past week, I realized that these five stages are applicable to what I'm feeling as I trudge through my coughing-sniffling-sneezing phase. I sound like a barking seal and have been holed up in my house for days because the cough is as loud as an air raid siren. No one needs to see me in my ratty bathrobe that has pockets bulging with used tissues. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear this is how a zombie apocalypse begins.

     I've also been taking that "feed a cold, starve a fever" saying way too far. I don't have a fever, so I feel justified in stuffing my miserable, aching self with a stack of pancakes and a warm bowl of mac & cheese. There's a reason these gastronomic pleasures are called "comfort foods." This is also why I'm living in my bathrobe lately….because chances are my jeans won't fit.

     If you've already been slammed with this season's new illnesses, I'm sure you'll relate to these five stages of a head cold:

DENIAL:  "I don't have a cold. It's just my allergies acting up. And the only reason my body aches is because I overdid it at the gym yesterday. There's no way I'm getting sick right now---only two days before my vacation begins. I'll just drink a gallon of orange juice, pop some throat lozenges , and go to bed early. I'm sure I'll be fine in the morning."

ANGER: "Who the hell gave me this cold?!? No one else in my family has been sick. I'll bet it was that guy hacking up a lung behind me in the 10-Items-Or-Less line at the grocery store. This is all his fault. How dare he set foot in public. He may have started a flu pandemic! If this coughing gets any worse, I'm going to put myself in an isolation tank for two weeks. At least it will get me out of doing housework for awhile. I'm far too weak to push a vacuum."

BARGAINING:  "Dear God, if you wipe away these cold symptoms right now, I promise to stop cursing so much at bad drivers. I'll even build a habitat for all the ferrel cats in the neighborhood. Better yet, I'll make dentures for all the elderly crocodiles living in the Everglades. I promise to do anything you ask, if you just make this head cold disappear."

DEPRESSION: "10 days and I still can't get out of bed. According to Web MD, I have a rare disease that comes from exposure to the dust on a rhino's horn. Although I have not been to a zoo in five years and as far as I know, no one on the block has a rhino stashed in their backyard. I'm exhausted and drowning in nasal spray. My gawd, I'm going to die right here in my recliner….in my ratty bathrobe, with two Vick's Inhalers shoved up my nostrils. If I die tonight, the mortician won't need to embalm me because I'll have enough cold medicine in my system to keep my body preserved for years."

ACCEPTANCE: "Okay, I'm not dying, even though I look and sound like I have the Black Plague. I just need to adjust to breathing out of my mouth and having a head that feels like it has been filled with sand bags. At this point, I'd be willing to convert to Scientology if it meant having one phlegm-free day.

     Now that I've been through the five stages of a head cold, I've forgiven the stranger who shared his germs with me at the grocery store, bargained my way into a larger size pair of jeans and decided that there will be no more trips to the rhino exhibit at the zoo.

   
We all have them. The secret sins that keep us awake at night and tap us on the shoulder during the day while we try to go about our business. The sins that we would prefer that our friends and neighbors never see. For some, this means dancing the salsa naked with a Hoover Upright ( Hey! I didn't say that was me!). For others, it's sticking their face in a bag of mini, cheese-flavored rice cakes at 2:00a.m. (Okay maybe that was me).
     I'm not Catholic and I'm pretty sure you're not a priest, but I'm sitting in a confessional booth right now about to spill the goods on Menopausal Mama's seven deadly sins.

ENVY:  I live near a park and a jogging trail. I see women of all ages out there, rollerblading, jogging and biking. Certain ones catch my eye---the PERFECT ones, who look like they just rolled off the Barbie shelf at Target. Pink sweats with the Juicy label across their firm, little butts, and a matching tank top stretched tight across breasts that aren't jiggling like jello cups in a truck when they jog. THOSE are the women I envy. Their pre-baby bodies are free of stretch marks
resembling the NYC subway system. They are blessed with perky boobs on the high beam setting aimed at the stars instead of their knee caps. It makes me long for my youth and a certain pink bikini I once owned.


GLUTTONY:  This is the reason I no longer own the aforementioned pink bikini. I am a wine hoarder and a Nutella crack head. I am also selfish when it comes to Chinese take-
out. Don't touch my egg roll or lay a finger on my chicken chow mein. To prevent anyone else from stealing my leftovers from the fridge, I cleverly disguise my food in a covered jar marked "URINE SAMPLE." It keeps my thieving teenager away from my stash while I'm busy Googling Nutella rehab centers.

PRIDE:  This is something easily lost when you're driving an old minivan with missing hubcaps and a broken door handle....which is why you'll NEVER see me behind the wheel of the mommy mobile that seizes up at every stop light in town. My husband has inherited that hemorrhoid on wheels because he happens to know car CPR. My own pride is seriously challenged every day at the gym when I look in the mirror and see body parts wiggling and waving back at me in an unnatural way. But if you ask me about my kids or my granddaughter, I'll
whip out my cell phone faster than you can say moo shu pork and force you to watch a terminally long slide show of every phase in their lives, starting with their ultrasound images all the way to their college graduation ceremonies.


LUST:  When you're menopausal, the mind says, "Yes" but the body says, "Oh, hell no!" So you learn to lust after other things....like a beef burrito the size of a chihuahua. Or Ben and Jerry's Triple Caramel Chunk ice cream and a good bottle of Dom Perignon. A trip to Tahiti would be nice too, but at this rate I'll never be able to fit back into that pink bikini again.

ANGER:  Think Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Anthony Hopkins in Silence Of The Lambs. This is what I become when my son misses the school bus at 6:30 a.m. My head has also been known to spin like I'm in the throes of an exorcism when I send The Hubs to the hardware store for a socket set and he returns with a water-sprayng fan or a singing can opener. What's next, a toilet plunger that chants, " I think I can, I think I can"?


SLOTH:  When I think sloth, the first image that comes to mind is Jabba the Hutt. No, I do not resemble a bloated, slug-like alien, nor do I eat fleshy, aquatic creatures with slimy legs. But I DO like having minions (a.k.a. children) around to take out the trash, wash the dinner dishes and fold the laundry before all the socks play hide-and-seek or join Match.com to find their missing partners.

GREED:  While most people associate greed with money and power, neither of those things appeal to me. I'm greedy when it comes to sleep. Those evil, menopausal twins Hot Flash and Fatigue have joined forces with their mischievous cousin Insomnia to deprive me of a solid, seven hours of slumber. My bladder is never one to miss a party either, so she's right up there playing checkers with her cohorts at all hours of the night. If there's such a thing as reincarnation, I want to come back as a bear so I can hibernate for a few months in a cave and bite the head off the first person who wakes me.

     There should be an 8th deadly sin as well, called INSANITY. When my body thermostat mimics the mercury levels of an Arizona desert during the month of July, or I suddenly find myself trolling the girdle aisle at Walmart, I'm bound to feel a little crazy. To combat the bipolar symptoms of my fluctuating hormones, I've discovered that the road to happiness is paved with Prozac and chocolate....and maybe a side trip to Tahiti with a pink bikini in my suitcase.