In the end, the real wisdom of menopause may be in questioning how fun or even sane this chore wheel called modern life actually is.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm enjoying my life, post-menopause, so much. It's just so great to grow into yourself, and not be bothered with all that tyranny of biology.
With so many forty- and fifty something mums and dads in Converse stalking the streets, I can see why there's a slew of books about the menopause and middle age, the most recent addition being David Bainbridge's plucky, glass-half-full meditation or, as he calls it, 'natural history.'
I certainly hope I'm not still answering child-star questions by the time I reach menopause.
Women know when they've got the menopause but men don't quite know. They know it afterwards.
The literature of menopause is the saddest, the most awful, and the most medical of all genres. You're sleepless, you're anxious, you're fat, you're depressed - and the advice is always the same: take more walks, eat some kale, and drink lots of water. It didn't help.
In 1900, the average life expectancy of a US citizen was 48, so most menopausal women were dead, which is not a great place to be.
Aging can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it.
There was a point where there was a vision that we'll get to a certain age, and then we'll retire and be happy. Now that's like, that's being compromised every day. So I think we have to start living happy now and stop waiting for the forty years because by then you'll be so sick, you wouldn't enjoy it anyway.
The fact is that modern life has deprived us of life's one great luxury: time.
Other people get moody in their forties and fifties - men get the male menopause. I missed the whole thing. I was just really happy.