An Old Lady Story

(Ok, just to say, no one ever actually feels they’re old. I’m still comparing myself to what I could do when I was in my 20’s and 30’s and some things are just as good or better, like there are some positions I can do now when I do yoga, and my level of rock climbing has not really changed, and all that means is that I was always too lazy to train seriously. I kinda sucked then and I kinda suck now, I guess. I also have the confidence now to start a blog post with an aside, in parenthesis, and blithely plagiarize Shakespeare, so no, sir. I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb.)

This is all getting around to talking about….hormone therapy for menopause. Because where else would a beginning like that wind up? I feel it’s an entirely natural segue.

I’ve just begun a hormone treatment and it makes me feel all young and perky again. Or if not that, then at least less old and achy. But it’s all new, and I forget sometimes that I need to take stuff twice a day and left for a week away from home without my drugs. Just forgot them. One drug I take at night and the other is, oddly enough, an estrogen gel that I squirt out and rub into my arms in the morning.

I had an old prescription for the drugs on my phone, from when I’d scanned it for my insurance. I figured it’s hardly Oxy or Valium, so I could probably get a pharmacy to give me a short supply to tide me over until I got home. I found a pharmacy at the train station that opened early, before I needed to be at work, so I stopped by this morning and they did. I was able to get a small stock to last me until I got home again…but I was thinking about how nice I feel with these drugs. And I started to imagine a bunch of older women, wandering around the train station, or squatting in corners, holding out their arms saying, “Just a small squirt, man. I just need a bit. Help me out, dude. Just a dab. I’ll knit you a scarf.” We could go from being invisible to menaces, the scourge of bad neighborhoods, hanging out on street corners waiting for a hit. People would say, “Don’t go over there, they’ll be all over you,” and us just whacking people with our handbags, which wouldn’t have anything to with getting drugs, in the end, but just because it’s really fun to hit people with handbags.

I don’t even have a handbag. (Note to self: get a handbag).

(Along with that other note: don’t forget your hormone therapy stuff when you travel.)