All I Want to Do is Read a Book

 

Like the majority of the people reading this post, I love books. I devoured as many as I could carry from the public library as a child.  I actually read the classics assigned in American and English literature classes; no Cliff Notes for me.  In adulthood, when I started earning my own money, I purchased and read a minimum of a book a week, sometimes more.

Often around the lunch table in the company cafeteria, the discussion would include the best-seller of the moment.  We would swap paperbacks and hardcovers, argue about their relative merits, then move on to movies, my other passion.

Sometime in my mid-forties, I started experiencing wild mood swings, outbursts of temper, crying jags, night sweats and depression. I thought I was either losing my mind or I had an exotic disease transmitted by some insect I encountered in the mountains of California or the sandy beaches of Mexico, where I had recently vacationed.

It was perimenopause.  I was going to be one of those women who goes through the “change of life” -- as it was whispered by the older women in my family, as if it were an even worse form of “The Curse” than the womanly secret it follows and halts – rather early.

According to a web site I found on the subject, there are 34 separate symptoms one can experience in menopause.  By the time I was 50 I had wrestled with at least 19 of them, but a tiny maroon pill called Premarin seemed to be all I needed to keep myself reasonably comfortable.  But there was one symptom at work that I neither noticed at first nor had ever heard about from anyone.

In retrospect, I realize there was a gradual change in my ability to concentrate, especially when trying to read anything longer than a few paragraphs.  Whereas in my prime my memory was as close to photographic as one can get without actually being one, little by little, I was having to reread sentences or paragraphs in order to retain the meaning.

If I was reading a book, instead of picking it up where I left off the last time, I might have to backtrack in order to refresh my memory of the plot.  Unless the plotline and/or the dialogue was particularly exciting (or salacious, I must admit)  I found my mind wandering into completely unrelated territory, losing complete focus on the words on the page. 

According to my doctor, some women’s menopausal symptoms come to a complete end at some point after they began.  Others, like me, have lingering, sometimes lifelong, side effects.  In my case, the one that lingers and drives me up the wall is the inability to sit still for long periods reading a book.  I also have a difficult time staying awake in a dark theater for an entire movie.  The only exception, lately, has been a movie in which my son has a role.  That seems to be enough incentive for my hormone imbalanced mind to stay alert for the entire length of the film.

I have tried all the remedies suggested to rule out other culprits that could be causing this troubling change.  I sleep an average of seven hours a night.  I eat a healthy diet rich in brain-friendly nutrients like omega-3 and omega-6.  And I take my little maroon pill religiously.

In the meantime, I buy the books my blogging friends write because I want to support their work and because they are excellent writers with points of view I can learn from, or senses of humor I can laugh at and enjoy.  I have dutifully read at least the first chapter of each.. but little more.

I have come to terms with the other 19 symptoms.  I have finally let go of my dream of returning to my pre-menopausal weight and figure.  I have resigned myself to the fact that, like my mother and grandmother before me, my thinning hair is going to keep on thinning and I’ll just have to get used to seeing my pink scalp through what remains of my variegated strands.  Or invest in a good wig.  And I’ve had enough brain freezes of my own to find a smattering of sympathy for Rick Perry and his oops moments.

But the last book I was able to read from cover to cover was The Di Vinci Code.  That was what, eight years ago?  This is a symptom I’m never going to be able to accept.  Suggestions are welcome.