Today I received an email from my friend Sandy. She is one of my favourites. We met over twenty years ago in a chic part of London and have been close ever since.
Sandy is a fair bit younger than I am, but I like her anyway. She is veggie, funny and extremely clever – plus she swears a lot.
Her husband is clever, too, as are her children, which is not surprising seeing as from the age of two their bedroom walls were lined with a map of the world, country flags and the periodic table. By the time they were four, they knew more about the world than I did.
Sandy’s email made me smile and then cry, and then my husband cried too. He only gave a small cry, but it meant a lot to me.
There were two things at play here…
Sandy likes to use the word ‘lush’. She had used it in her message and it made me smile. It always does. Where I would use the word ‘good’, Sandy would say ‘lush’. For example, I was a ‘good’ girl and she was a ‘lush’. Metaphorically speaking.
As for the crying, it is a straightforward equation: I am a menopausal woman and therefore I cry.
Sandy’s words really moved me as, to my surprise, she had opened up about herself in a way that she hadn’t before. She told me how she’d been feeling as a menopausal fledgling, her worries and her fears. My dear veggie friend was going through the menopause and I hadn’t known and what touched me most was that she’d been hiding her feelings and masking her concerns. She had not said a word.
It made me wonder how many other women are hiding their struggles – afraid to say and embarrassed to share.
And I could see that by sharing some of menopausal me, Sandy shared menopausal her and in that moment, we created a special bond – a menopausal bond. A bond for life.
Travelling alone can make for a tough journey.
Let’s speak up.
Let’s share.
Let’s support each other and show that we care.
Yay!
Jackie x
(Shared from my old diaries)
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