“Dammit … It IS Menopause!” Excerpt: This Is the End of the World—Hair Trauma Edition

I have naturally curly, frizzy, wavy red hair. I was teased relentlessly as a child. When I was about 46, I discovered the flat iron, which enables me to make my hair smooth, shiny, and straight; something I have wished for my entire life. This was before chemical straightening, which I’ll tell you about in another journal entry. I realized that I had become extremely attached to my flat iron, but when do you know if you have a problem with flat iron dependence?

On the morning of my son’s end-of-preschool music pageant, I was alone in the house, air conditioning blasting, and mega-sized ice water within reach. I was in the hair-styling “zone,” on the home stretch of blow drying—the phase just prior to ironing. Suddenly, I blew the fuse for my dryer. Annoyed, I searched the house for another operative plug. The only one in the house that worked had no mirror near it. Throwing on a bathrobe, I went outside to the circuit breaker to see what I could do. I am not the most electrically-minded person. I had no luck. Presently my parents arrived to ride with me to the pageant. By then I was freaking out because besides being late, I had begun to perspire, and it was ruining my makeup. My ultra-conservative parents weren’t quite sure what to make of my ranting and raving with half my hair dry and the other half in a giant clippie and wearing only a skimpy bathrobe.

Eventually I finished the hairdo using an extension cord. This is my answer to every electrical problem. I once regained the use of electricity by extending multiple extension cords between our neighbor’s house and ours when we lost power because my darling husband had forgotten to pay our electric bill. But I digress.

This outburst was yet another sign to me that something was going on with me. I knew that my anxiety level exceeded what it normally would have been in this situation. What was going on?

Meditation/Prayer for the day: 

Dear God, Please make these behavior changes stop, or at least explain why they are occurring. I feel so strange. I don’t feel at all like myself. What did You do with Sally? Please bring her back.

You can find more excerpts from “Dammit … It IS Menopause!” by clicking here.

Sally Bartlett, ©2021