Ep. 18 - Men Could Never (And Other Truths About Midlife Women)

This episode almost didn't happen the way you're hearing it. I scrapped the first recording after a rough weekend and came back with something more real. It's a love letter to every midlife woman doing more than anyone gives her credit for, and a reminder that showing up in the middle of the chaos is its own kind of superpower.

In this episode:

• The funk I couldn't explain on Thursday, and the honest conversation I had with Mark that followed
• Why "is it hormones or is it just life" might be the most common question in midlife, even on HRT
• What happened when I went looking for inspiration in the magazine aisle at Barnes & Noble
• The Helen Mirren quote that stopped me mid-page (aging versus the alternative)
• The menopause symptom list that made me think "men could never," and why that's not a hate men moment
• My friend who just closed a 20 year fitness studio, and what that ending is actually the beginning of
• Why midlife women are the superheroes of their own stories, and it's time we said it out loud

If this episode hit something in you, send it to a midlife woman who needs to hear it today. Because sister, you are not done yet.

Ready to stop circling the thing you can't stop thinking about? Take the free Not Done Yet Spark and discover your next step.

www.rachelaperry.com/spark 

Transcript

Welcome To Not Done Yet

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Welcome to Not Done Yet, the podcast for midlife women who know deep down their story isn't finished. I'm your host, Rachel Perry, and here we're going to talk about what's really happening in this season of life: the identity shifts, the quiet questions, the courage it takes to listen to yourself again, what it actually looks like to step into what's next, and why our boobs are hitting our knees. If you've ever looked at your life and thought, wait, is this it? Girl, you're in the right place. Because midlife isn't the end of your story, it's the moment you start paying attention to it. So take a breath and let's talk about what's really going on and what you want to do with it. Because, sister, you are not done yet. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of Not Done Yet. I recorded this episode last week and really felt like it the episode that I recorded just did not feel aligned. And sometimes that happens with me. So I have I'm re-recording this because over the weekend, some stuff happened. Okay. Some stuff happened. And I feel like this is the conversation we need to have. So, y'all, I just want to start this out by saying we're freaking amazing. We're freaking amazing. As women, we are heroes. Like we are we're amazing. And I I don't think I don't think we recognize this enough, right? But as women in our 40s, 50s,

Re-Recording After A Rough Weekend

SPEAKER_00 2:42

even 60s, we're dealing with a level of physical, hormonal, emotional, and logistical complexity that is genuinely extraordinary. Extraordinary. And you're still showing up, you're still building things, you're still starting new chapters, not in spite of all of it, but somehow in the middle of all of it. And y'all, that is not ordinary. That's superhero level. And I think it's time we named it. I think we call it that. We are freaking superheroes. So on Thursday, actually, I think it was after I'd recorded the episode for this week, I was just in a funk. Just a real funk. And I was feeling all day, I was just feeling so irritated. I was feeling so down, like just discouraged and anxious. And, you know, I thought, okay, what is going on, first of all? And then I was like, okay, maybe this is hormonal. Maybe this is hormonal. Now I'm on HRT, as you guys know. Like I'm on estrogen and progesterone. So I didn't think that this was supposed to be happening, but I'm still getting my periods. So

Irritability, HRT, And The Funk

SPEAKER_00 3:59

maybe I'm PMSing. I don't know. But I was just feeling this intense level of irritation at everyone. I was like, please don't even open your mouth. It was kind of like, oh my gosh. Did you, if you ever watched John and Kate Plus Eight? And have you seen that clip where she's like, can you stop? Can you stop breathing? You're just so loud. And she's horrible. She's heinous. And we think, I mean, that was awful. Like, stop breathing. Come on. But I felt like that, y'all. That's how I felt. I was like, don't move. Don't. I was just so irritable. And it wasn't a fun place to be. And I said to Mark, I said to my husband, I don't like this. I don't like feeling like this. It sucks. Is it hormones? Is it not hormones? Is it that I don't know. Like, what is this? Is it anxiety? We have a big trip coming up. The whole family, my extended family, my brother's coming in from England with his kids, and my sister's coming up from Charlotte. And so we're all going to the river. And I'm feeling anxious just about getting stuff together. And we're all going to be together. And, you know, with that brings a lot of emotion. So much fun. We're going to have so much fun. But obviously, you eventually get annoyed with each other. Anyway, I maybe that's playing a part of it. I didn't know. But I it just it hit me that man, this is a lot. This is a lot that I'm feeling. I don't have a reason for it. It took me back to when I was a teenager and my mom was probably going through menopause or perimenopause, although it wasn't named that then. And just the tremendous mood swings that we have, that she had, that I am having. And I found it so frustrating that as I was telling Mark, as a guy tends to do, they want to fix things, right? Oh, it's fine. It'll be fine. It's not a big deal. Blah, blah, blah, blah. But I'm like, no, you don't know what it feels like. This feels this sucks. Like, this really sucks. And I don't want to be around anyone, but I know, and I know it's my fault. And Emma at one point she goes, Mom, you're a little bit irritable. And I was like, I know I am. I don't know why. I hate it. I don't know why. Yeah, it sucks. Sorry. So anyway, I was just feeling, I was just in a huge funk. And I couldn't figure out why. And I just knew that maybe this is what, you know, this is. And then I thought, oh my gosh, is this something that I'm just gonna have to deal with for 10 years? Five, 10 years. I don't know. I'm still getting my period. So I don't know. I have a year after I stop. So what? Anyway, it I was talking to my friend Ren, and she's like, Rachel, here's what I think you need to do. Because I was also kind of, as a result, not feeling super creative in my business. She said, Rachel, go to Barnes and Noble, look at the magazines that you looked at when you read, you when you were in your 20s, you know, like Cosmo, Cosmopolitan or whatever. And just see if you can get inspired. Not because I'm speaking to people in their 20s, but to get a different perspective, right? And I went thinking, I'm gonna read these magazines and I'm gonna get inspired to kind of this is how they're looking at it in their 20s, guys, but we have the wisdom, and this is how we're looking at it in our 50s. Like that was kind of what I was thinking. So I went, and y'all, what I found was not what I expected at all. First of

Barnes And Noble Reality Check

SPEAKER_00 7:40

all, I expected all these magazines, like Glamour and uh Cosmo, and what were the other ones that we like? There were so many that that we used to read, right? Y'all, there was one Cosmo. One. And I'm guessing magazines aren't as big for the younger generation because they have their phones, right? But what I thought was interesting was that there were more magazines than I'd ever seen celebrating women over 50. Yeah. Like wellness, menopause, all of it, aging, all of it. So I pulled them all. I pulled them all, and I sat down with my daughter, actually. She was reading, and I just went through it. I just went through the magazines. And what was so I actually did I found one Cosmo and I pulled that too. What I found was so interesting, the Cosmo magazine was focused on skincare and hair care and makeup, all the things that we're talking about in our late 40s and 50s, right? Like how we need to do vitamin C in the morning on our skin as far as skincare and collagen. Y'all, if if they'd been talking to us about that when we were in our 20s, we would be looking so good. I mean, we look so good now, but seriously, you're welcome. You're welcome, Gen Z. You're welcome, Gen Alpha. That's because of Gen X. Yep, just saying it, just saying it, putting it out there. But anyway. So I didn't really get inspired by Cosmo. I was just like, oh, well, good for them. They're gonna look amazing when they're our age. But then I was looking at these other magazines. Helen Miren was on the cover of one of them, which was so funny because I had just talked about her in this podcast episode that I had recorded that I chucked. Not, we're not gonna use. But anyway, it was talking. She actually, there was a quote that she had in the magazine, and I am gonna mess it up because I didn't buy that particular magazine. But it was basically like you haven't with aging, you you have a choice. You either age or you die young. And I'm choosing aging. And I thought that was so powerful because you're right. I don't, yeah, okay. Aging is the only other option, right? Or dying. And so I'm like, no, we're I'm gonna own this. But then as I was flipping through one of the articles in particular, and I think it was the Oprah magazine, and I think it was the menopause edition, there was an there was an article, it was like an alphabet of symptoms that everything happens to women physically during menopause. And I, as I was flipping through there, I had a couple of thoughts. First, y'all, men could never, okay, but we'll come back to that in a second. But I was thinking we deal with all of this shit. Okay. Dry vagina, okay? Mm-hmm. Dry vagina, hair loss, skin changes, brain fog, anxiety, hot flashes, heart palpitations, mood swings. There were so many more, and I'll do another episode on just this article because I think it's worth it. But then what hit me is and

Menopause Symptoms And Still Showing Up

SPEAKER_00 11:05

we still show up. And we're still building things, and we're starting new chapters, and we're planning family trips, trips, we're running households, we're going to Barnes and Noble with our children, we're going to the pool, we're, we're, we do all the things. We do all the things, you guys. Who does that? We do. Hi, we do. Y'all, we do. So I really think this episode, I just want you to recognize that for a second. Just take a moment and recognize all the crap that you deal with as a woman. And listen, this is not a hate men conversation, because it's not, but it is a holy shiser. Let's celebrate women because we're amazing, especially midlife women. So I have a friend who she was, she started Mommy Boot Camp, I believe. And I used to go there when my kids were little and it was amazing. She ended up opening a studio and it had evolved many times. It became, she had just different focuses with it. But ultimately, what it was was this space for her to serve women and help them with their fitness. Well, she just, after 20 plus years, she's just closed the doors to this fitness studio, which is amazing. It's the end of one chapter and the beginning of another for her. She built something for 20 years. And now she's stepping into whatever is next. And that takes so much courage. And she's doing it while navigating all the same stuff I've just talked about. That's not someone who's old and past her prime. That's someone who is in her prime in the most real and honest sense of the work of the word, right? And I think there's a version of 50 that the, and I'm saying 50, but I'm meaning midlife, right? There's a version of 50 that the younger generation sees. And it's so far from the truth. Because to a 25-year-old, 50 looks old. I thought that. I thought that, right? And in our minds, to the youth, right, old means done, irrelevant, past it. Like, what has she got left? She's an old lady. But that's what's so wildly inaccurate and funny to me. Because what 50 actually looks like from the inside is more alive, more clear, more self-aware, more willing to take up space than ever before. We know what matters, we know what doesn't. We've survived things that would have broken us at 25. We're not old, y'all. This is gonna be so cheesy. We're forged. I love romantic. Like I read so many books, and um, like it's insane how many I read. I just, it's like my escape. And in Quicksilver, there's a book called Quicksilver, and they talk about forging the the swords and all of that. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. But that's what we are, you guys. And men could never, can we just like let's just acknowledge that for a second? Men are awesome, men deal with things too genuinely. They're strong. We're stronger. Did I just say that? This is not a hate men moment. Seriously, this is not. But I just want us to be honest for a second because as I was scrolling, scrolling, no, Rach, you were not scrolling through the magazines. As I was flipping through the magazines, it did occur to me. Men could never, right? The specific combinations of things that women navigate in midlife, like the hormonal complexity alone, plus the emotional labor, not with everybody else in our lives, the identity shifts, the physical changes, okay, plus showing up for everyone around us and starting new things and building new things and dreaming new dreams, all at the same time. And I'm not saying men could never to be mean, I'm saying it because it's true. We've been so conditioned to minimize what we carry that we forget sometimes how extraordinary it actually is. And men are celebrated. Men are celebrated. Women in midlife are not, but they should be. They should be. Y'all, I just shared all the freaking amazing things that we do as women, that we navigate as women in midlife, in perimenopause and menopause. And we keep on keeping on. Why is that not celebrated more? Why is that not celebrated? Right? We are the superheroes. We're the superheroes in the story. You are a superhero. You're the superhero in the story, friend. Not because you have special powers, although we do,

Reinvention At 50 And Beyond

SPEAKER_00 16:04

but because we show up anyway. We show up in the middle of the hormonal chaos, we show up in the middle of the family logistics, we show up in the middle of the funk that you have on Thursday for no apparent reason. You show up in the middle of closing a studio and starting over. You show up in the middle of it all, in spite of it all. You show up, you keep going, you find a new chapter, right? You're not done. You're not old. Y'all, we are not old. We are not past our prime. We are right in the middle of the most interesting, most powerful, most fully realized version of ourselves. And that deserves to be celebrated. Not someday, right now, today. Okay, friend? Like today. I want you to leave this, like when you turn this podcast off, or when you are done with this, which is almost done. I want you to think about how amazing you are. I want every woman in midlife to recognize you may not feel it. You may be in the middle of your own funk. You may be dealing with hormones and feeling things that you don't really know why you're feeling them. You're still the superhero. You're freaking amazing and you need to be celebrated, right? You're dealing with things that would take most people out, and you're still here, and not just men. Like, listen, if we had to deal with this when we were in our 20s, I mean, we we would have stepped up. But but we're bringing so much more to the table now, right? And you're still here, you're still showing up, you're still wanting more, you're still building things, you're still dreaming. And if you're not dreaming, girl, it's time to start that is not ordinary. You are extraordinary. And I want you to know that today. You are the superhero in your own story, and you are not done yet. And if you know of another midlife woman who needs to hear this, I would be so grateful if you would share this podcast with them. Every midlife woman needs to understand and recognize her superhero status, her power. Because can you imagine when you step into that? The things that you can do. I'm just stunning. I'm just stunning. Listen, I think you did so much. I hope you have been using the rest of the week. I tell you today. I tell you, take care.