Movies on (pre)Menopause

With Movies on (pre)Menopause, I was on Facebook a few weeks back doing what I do: asking questions to procrastinate. And someone suggested I do a podcast about anything I watched in the last month.

I admitted that I hadn’t watched anything that wasn’t work related for at least 3 months. And that felt horrible to confess.

When I was a child, I had no siblings and I was painfully shy.

Movies, tv and books were my friends.

And as a GenX kid, I could be as fascinated by a commercial as I could by a cheesy Roger Corman film as I could by a blockbuster hit in the theater. The moment I saw a story I was hooked, and I never cared what kind of story it was. I just loved being another person for a short time. Hell, I could even find an escapist plot on the box of my Rice Krispies.

And because stories were such close companions, I learned how to make my own. In my bedroom as a preteen, with my box of a tv and dial channel changer, I would watch The Greatest American Hero and I would wait for the very end.

My favorite part was always that production logo showing Stephen J. Cannell typing and that magical page flying from the typewriter to rest on a manuscript. I dreamed of growing up to be that logo: the writing office, the typewriter, the statues. I even had beard envy. And I wrote. I started with a ghost story in grade school and voraciously consumed and created through my degree in literature and found my soul in plays and scripts. It makes complete sense I became a producer and programmer because I always felt at peace simply being in the presence of stories and storytellers who I could see had my introvert tendencies and my love for escapism.

But just before the pandemic, I had noticed I wasn’t watching as many movies and I barely got through the first few chapters of books. I found myself staring at my computer in times I would be working on three character creations, an arc chart, and script. I thought maybe it was stress or my bad habit of scrolling social media eating my brain.

When the pandemic struck and I lost my job, even though the world was on fire, John and I found an emotional safe space for ourselves with our dogs and library of books and DVDs. I thought this was my time to start enjoying movies with vigor. And I could read some novels after a day gardening and sending my husband off into the apocalypse for Eggo’s and milk.

But I couldn’t read a novel. I was physically unable. My mind wandered. I didn’t grasp key elements of the story. I’d forget a character introduced only a few pages earlier. I would flip to the end and just toss the book aside.

And then my Dad died. And then my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. And then I left my whole life in Dallas to be with my Mom.

The moment I came to terms that my time in California was going to be much longer than a visit, I looked around the house I grew up in. Much of this house is unchanged. My box tv has been replaced with a little table top flat screen. The books I had as a teenager have travelled with me so their spot is filled with cookbooks and knick knacks. Could I sit in my childhood home and bring back that love for the stories? No. I could not. My brain couldn’t take in a commercial, let alone a fully formed storyline. I got obsessed with tiktok and just slept or watched one minute content. Of course, I then assumed this depressive, distracted state was because of the stress of everything. But as a woman who has lived decades in constant stress, this didn’t match my usual trauma response. Books and movies were my trauma response.

And then my Mom and I got vaccinated mere weeks after my 51st birthday and three months before the anniversary of Dad’s death.

And now, my like-clockwork menstrual cycle is no longer. I haven’t had a regular period in all of 2021. And this is leading me to realize, oh yeah, this is the age we go pre-menopausal. But I don’t have hot-flashes, I’d think. I’m just dumb as rocks. Well, then I learned “dumb as rocks” is a symptom. And now it’s all clear. The pandemic was no help. Mourning the loss of my parents, one in death and one in illness, was certainly a factor in my emotional state. But menopause stole my stories.

So what’s a woman to do?

After John and I finished an episode of What the Film, I saw my zoom set up we use and the makeup I spent 10 grueling minutes on (ladies, menopause has also ruined my patience for a good cateye). I knew it was time to push through the craving for a nap and just see what came out of my brain. I hung out on my zoom for an hour more and just recorded me talking.

And after watching these two little pieces, I am starting to see it come together. I want to talk to cinephiles who menstruate, or at least used to, and discuss how the change has affected us and then talk about a movie with our new brain.

So, that’s where I am in this journey. I’d love your thoughts on this as I prepare to create a full episode.

With Movies on (pre)Menopause, I was on Facebook a few weeks back doing what I do: asking questions to procrastinate. And someone suggested I do a podcast about anything I watched in the last month.

With Movies on (pre)Menopause, I was on Facebook a few weeks back doing what I do: asking questions to procrastinate. And someone suggested I do a podcast about anything I watched in the last month.