Perimenopausal Inheritance

When I turned 40 I had two children, a 20-year-old marriage, and a wild hair up my ass. I’m 55 now, and with time and reflection it's abundantly clear that this was, in fact, perimenopause. We didn’t have TikTok in 2010, how was I to know? At the time it felt like I was finding my sexual agency - I was sexy and alive. It was intoxicating.

It all started when I told my husband that I wanted to have sex with other people. Happily, he agreed so we opened our marriage and dived headlong in to Portland’s vibrant swinging scene. 

Turns out we were pretty good at it. We made a bunch of friends, I did a lot of stuff, and I did a lot people. I harnessed my event planning skills and started hosting meet-and-greets and parties, I started a robust online community, and blogged about my experience. When we told our “vanilla” friends what we were up to, some of them even decided to open their own relationships. 

A couple of years in to our non-monogamy journey my story was scheduled to be published in a national weekly. It was time to tell my mom what was going on - I needed to control the narrative before her friends read about my sex life on the Internet.

Me: Mom, we opened our marriage. We have sex with other people, we’re practicing ethical non-monogamy.

Mom: Is this because of me?

Me: Oh my God, ew gross. How and why could this have anything to do with you?

And then I got to thinking.

In 1978 my mom was the hot, new single gal on the scene after her divorce from my dad. And at the tender age of 9 I had a front row seat to her newfound sexual freedom. 

I received quite a bit of information.

There was that time I asked about the condoms in the grocery bag and I was given a detailed description of their use and encouraged to put one through a rigorous stress test, which included holding it out of the car window to see how much it would inflate.

There was the other time that I asked what an uncircumcised penis was and, instead of “Where did I Come From” or another age-appropriate source, she provided me with a Playgirl magazine featuring an un-cut centerfold. (Pre-internet, folks, she waited months for the right centerfold to come along.) 

An R-rating was merely a suggestion for my mom. I saw all of the early 80’s comedy hits - chock-full of sexual innuendo and titties - on repeat. Caddyshack, Airplane, and Porkys were foundational media. 

Mom assumed that her sex-positivity in my youth inspired my slutty midlife. No doubt, she definitely provided me a good - albeit slightly unhinged - foundation. But there was an insidious relational element that I’ve only just discovered. 

My mom remarried when I was 13 to a really crappy guy. Ten, long years later (perimenopause to the rescue!) she divorced him and got right to work - and I mean work - to find a relationship with a man that would make her whole. She wanted her Jackie O moment - a third, last, best husband.

Her friends set her up, no dice. She hired a matchmaker, no dice. Internet dating was just coming online and she became one of Match.com's earliest and most robust users. 

This brave woman went on 70 - seven zero - in-person dates. If we included DMs and phone calls we’d be looking at hundreds of connections. She traveled much of America, even to Mallorca Spain, in search of her perfect match. 

Through all of that she found a couple sub-par and fleeting beaus. Disappointed and tired, she stopped her search. In her words, “At my age, they’re all looking for a nurse and a purse.”

At 50 mom turned her attention to her relationship with herself. When she stopped actively looking for a man her art career, which had always lived in the shadows, percolated with possibility. She travelled the world, volunteered, skied often, took up tennis, and poured herself in to her community. 

She found the love of her life: herself.

When I turned 50 I hung up my swingers’ hat and found myself a therapist for the first time in my life. I learned so much about myself, and quite a bit about my mom.

I learned that my my mom wasn’t looking for a companion, she was looking to fill the void from her lonely childhood. I learned that I wasn’t looking for sexual adventure, I was seeking the attention I was missing in my lonely marriage. I learned that we were both seeking our own value through the male gaze.

I am just opening my eyes to this part of my post-perimenopausal journey, the part where I find myself, where I reclaim what I set aside while tending to children, building resources and community, and serving a marriage. 

I was a ski instructor this year, I’m writing, performing, and creating. I’m still married, and our relationship is still open. It’s nothing like what it was, and I don’t know what it will be. But here we are.

And here I am, falling in love with myself.