Preparing for Menopause

When you can’t plan, because you can’t predict.

What Covid taught me about over-planning

I was ready for lockdown. Most of us could see it coming before it got here after all. (What has this got to do with the menopause..? I’ll come to that.)

I knew I’d be alone and my partner locked down 100 miles away (which is further away in the UK than it might seem for my US readers). I knew I wouldn’t be touched for a long time, so I started fostering cats again. I decided I would make things to send to my partner to keep some sense of physicality alongside all the Skyping. I signed up for Amazon Prime. I didn’t panic buy (but to be honest I’d already laid a few things aside in case things got tricky when the UK crashed out of the EU). I made a list of all the things I’d been wanting to get done and got on with them.

I read the research. I made masks. I set up a box by the door to leave parcels in for 72 hours. I had a table by the door with hand sanitiser and kitchen towel and surgical spirit (similar to rubbing alcohol) to clean phone, keys, and glasses — all of which, it now seems likely, was unnecessary.

I hadn’t planned for the fact that my relationship would end six weeks in, and that alone in lockdown I’d have to grieve that loss as well as…