My Menopause Blog: The Black Triangle

I'll start off with an example.

I am a wilderness canoeist. I've been a wilderness canoeist for 25 years. As a result, I own a number of maps for various canoe trips that I've enjoyed or hope to enjoy in the future.

I keep all my maps in one of two places. Easy to find. Neatly folded. Always ready when I am.

Until now.

I am missing a map for a route that I hope to go on in a weeks time. I have looked in the one of two places about a million times. I have looked in places that are somehow associated with the one of two places; places that make no sense; places suggested by other people who canoe and own maps and still, I can not put my fingers on my much needed map.

In my peri-menopausal mind, I see it clear as day. But in my reality, the map has vanished into The Black Triangle.

Rather than continue the self torture and worry my trip companions by stubbornly refusing to admit defeat and expecting us to travel without a map, I have re-ordered 2 copies from the map makers. Coincidentally, the woman who took my order over the phone was clearly tuned into the marvels of the menopausal mind. It was she who claimed that my map had been sucked into The Black Triangle that apparently haunts all menopausal women.

So where is my period? Where oh where is my memory? And, please, where the hell did I put my map?

Sue Richards