Some time, around the age of fifty, I seemed to become invisible and I didn’t like it! 

I have never been the ‘shy, retiring type’ more renowned for speaking up and speaking my mind, a bit ‘gobby’ perhaps. 

…… I’ve often said my mouth works faster than my brain and so the right words don’t always come out.  For this reason, if nothing else, people would remember me, even if their recall might be: “You mean that woman with the big mouth!”

…….I would be introduced to people and a couple of weeks’ later if I met them again, they would seemingly have no recall of ever having met me. If it had happened once I might have accepted it as a minor mistake, but when it kept occurring then I began to get upset.  I even began challenging people. By people, in general I mean men.  Now OK, if I’m introduced to an eighteen year old boy, he is not going to care who I am or even concentrate on the introduction, but when it comes to a guy who is anything from say a couple of years younger to any age older, then I expect some glimmer of memory.  But nothing!  Which told me one thing – I’d lost my appeal, my looks, my sensuality, my desirability, my very being.

…….Or, was it the f****-ing  menopause?  Had it done something to me? I’d sailed through it. It didn’t exist in my head, I ignored a flash of heat, I was no more moody than normal, (or so my daughter kindly told me,) but clearly something was very wrong.

“Maybe it was the MALE menopause?”

But then I began to see it through different eyes. Perhaps it wasn’t really me, perhaps it was THEM. Those men who were so sure of themselves a few years ago, guys at the top of the management tree, company directors, managing directors, owners of businesses, THEY had mostly taken early retirement or at least passed the reins to a younger team, still taking the money but losing the responsibility. Maybe it wasn’t ME who’d lost my status, maybe it was them? Maybe it was the MALE menopause?

“Suddenly I didn’t care what anyone thought!”

As soon as I saw the situation through new eyes, I for one, felt much more confidant.  Suddenly I didn’t care what anyone thought, I decided I was going to be myself. I’d be loud if I felt like it, quiet if I didn’t, I’d occasionally flash flirtatious eyes, (in the safety of the husband’s ring-fence,) and I’d chatter away as much as I wanted and if my companions didn’t know who I was, what the Hell!

When you swing something around and look at the situation from the opposite perspective it can be very different. 

“So many women lose their feeling of value as they age…. If this feels like you, stop right now! “

……If this feels like you, stop right now! You have every reason to be proud of yourself, so hold your head high, push your shoulders back, tighten those core muscles, stride forwards and ‘own it’.