So many peri/menopause books, so little time
+ Gray hairs on balls • How a 49-year-old designer gets 9-out-of-10 sleep
BeWell | The Midst beauty, style & wellness newsletter
Peri/menopause continues to have moments
We’ve heard it before in The Midst in 2019, in Vox in 2021, The New York Times in 2023, Ms. in 2024, and many more. Now The New Yorker is the latest major publication to declare that menopause is having a moment, but we’ve already been there, done that.
Except, The New Yorker writer, Rebecca Mead, makes the same point: “If you’ve got ovaries, you’ll go through it. So why does every generation think it’s the first to have hot flashes?” Here’s my favorite part of the article in which she addresses three new menopause books by Naomi Watts, Tamsen Fadal, and Mariella Frostrup:
Of the three, Watts’s book is the most winningly memoiristic, though a reader might wish for slightly fewer references to her own line of products. (One chapter is titled “Vag of Honor,” which is also the name of a hydrating gel available to order online.)
Watts, who went into early perimenopause in her mid-thirties, gives a painful account of her struggle, eventually successful, to get pregnant with her then partner, Liev Schreiber. She also gives an account of the first night she spent with Billy Crudup, now her husband, which could be lifted straight from the screenplay of a meno-positive rom-com: after laboring in the bathroom to remove a firmly attached hormone-delivery patch, Watts emerges with raw skin and confesses, “I’m in early menopause, which means I am old.”
Crudup points out that they are the same age. “Hey, if it makes you feel better: I’ve got gray hairs on my balls,” he tells her. Watts writes, “Those to date remain the most romantic words I’ve ever heard, onscreen or off.”
Agree, that’s romantic. What’s your take on “the ongoing peri/menopause moment”? If you’ve read Dare I Say It by Naomi Watts, How to Menopause by Tamsen Fadal, etc., which do you recommend?
Carrie O'Neal Brenner, 49
Occupation: Graphic designer and owner of Scripted Studio in Hamilton, Ohio
Follow me here: @carrieonealdesigns @shopscriptedstudio
Sleep rating: 9 out of 10
I feel very fortunate that my sleep has never really been a problem. My friends joke that I could sleep in the middle of a highway. But I will say, the older I get, the harder it is to fall asleep.
I'm normally in bed by 8:30 pm (I know...pretty early!) but actually go to sleep around 10 or 11. I'm blessed to sleep through the night most nights and get around nine hours of sleep.
Sleep tip
I'm able to "turn my brain off" pretty easily, which seems to be the issue with friends who have a hard time sleeping. I also don’t have a TV in my bedroom. And I've have started putting Magnesium Butter on my feet when I get into to bed. It has helped to almost lull me to sleep lately.
On my nightstand
The Magnesium Butter I use is from Sweet Bee Organics
Another must for my bedside is my Apple charging stand. Charging cords seem to constantly get "borrowed" and then I end up without a cord to charge my phone. My friend got me a charging stand several years ago specifically because it isn't convenient to "borrow." I find comfort that I can just plop my phone down in the same place every night and know it will be charged by morning.
And for the designer in me, I love having a pretty bowl on a nightstand to hold my many readers or random ponytale holders.
The Midst is a community-driven platform that inspires, connects, and empowers women 35+.