Helena smiles when she says this and I am struck with how she has worded what I see in so many mid-life and later women. “Or, maybe I’ve found the self I I used to be before I hit puberty.  After that, I was so focused on being a female, looking right for boys, just plain looking for boys.  Oh, I did everything else right.  I graduated college, went on for a MA in Library Science, got a decent job at a public library, got married and had two daughters I wouldn’t give up for the world.  Oh yea, I also got divorced, then dated some more.

“But, it was like the switch flipped once I hit menopause.  I grieved losing my period (unlike so many of my friends), but I being reminded I was a woman.”

Playing with her earrings, Helena is lost in thought.  “But it’s odd, out of that grieving came a lightness, a freshness; I’m not sure how to describe it.  The only words I have is that I ‘found myself.’  Like I’d been lost for 40 plus year and bumped into my old happy carefree self – with a huge amount of energy. 

“I’ve changed jobs, taken up sewing, like serious stuff, making dresses, suits, coats.  I’ve developed new friends ho talk about interesting things – not just men.  We are thinking of starting a monthly ‘Salon.’

“So where was I all those years between adolescence and menopause?”

The Cheshire cat smile crosses her face.  “That’s why I feel like I’ve waited until the last third of my life – the last minute, so to speak, to find myself.  I guess I’m a late bloomer.” (See Prill Boyle’s wonderful book, Defying Gravity: Celebrating Late Blooming Women, on this topic.)

I loved listening to Helena.  Then I got to hear from Cynthia, who pre-menopause was called Cindy.   She described what I find happens to so many always single women once the potential of having children are out of the way.  Once the mantra for single women -- find a man -- becomes less pressing, they find themselves.

Cynthia has entered what I call the Renaissance Period.  Literally, it translates to re-born.  Cynthia, like other women just coming out of a marriage or relationship or shifting their focus from men, is re-birthing their lives, finding aspects and interests they may have lost years ago, or newly discovering now.

All this, for the Helena’s and Cynthia’s of the world, can fall under the label of PMZ – post menopause zest!

If you are looking for your PMZ, consider this Fall’s Unique Retreat for Women Ready to Change.