The Pause That Refreshes–Not!
Menopause for two, and other humorous factors of gay aging
by D.L. Murphy

True story: It’s 3 a.m. I am at girlfriend du jour’s. I go into the bathroom, look into the mirror, and start carrying on about how I am going to get a facelift. Girlfriend tells me I don’t need a plastic surgeon, I need a priest. A priest? Yes, dear, to exorcise that drag queen living inside you. This is the birth of Whilimena, my femme alter ego.

Now, I was very tired of my standard butch-dyke utilitarian living room. I mean really, brown corduroy furniture in 1996! So, Whilimena hired a decorator. I really wish I had a picture of his face when Whilimena told him to make the living room look like "good money gone bad." My living room now looks exactly like I want. My wife says it looks like a gay man lives here. That’s OK, another of my alter egos is Mike the Faggot. (Now D, don’t get your hopes up, I am not bisexual. And the rest of you, give it a rest, I am not transitioning.)

Mike has taught me how to be silly. And to see how really ridiculous we all usually are. What a gift!

Next, I got to know a new part of myself ...Iris, the creative one. Iris may be creative, but she is not at all practical. She is so impractical she scares me. She did, however, manage the whole midlife crisis thing. Not very well, but here we are. In a nutshell, she quit a very lucrative job so I could nurture my creative talents, work in my community, and have a real relationship with my wife. I am having the best time of my life. All good and well, but somehow the bills have to get paid. I still have a hard time with Iris’s "the universe will provide" philosophy, especially when I still need a new pair of running shoes. The rest of this lament is so boring I am not even going to talk about it.

The older I got, the more my multiple personas multiplied. I became acquainted with the Invisible Woman. I was not all that good-looking when I was younger, but at least people saw me enough to yell "Dyke!" when I was on the street. Now, I am just another middle-aged woman, and therefore invisible to everyone except my peers. (And gay men, bless you all, boys.) I am still trying to figure out if this is a bad thing.

Enter Hortense the Hypochondriac. I was sure I was coming down with something. I had all the symptoms–intermittent fever, mood swings, general irritability. As time progressed, and no full-blown dreadful disease emerged, I was sure I was really sick. Then my periods stopped. My wife (older than me, I must add) informed me this was simply menopause, and I should give it a rest already.

Impossible to give anything a rest. You come live here. In a house with two women who have perpetual PMS. Even the cat is disgusted with the catfights. Every other day I am ready to pack up the pots and pans and leave. Or put her stuff on the porch and change the locks. Never happens. I can only get so crazy before my very dear friend (who lives downstairs, and who is a shrink) threatens to medicate me if I don’t quit being floridly psychotic. Right now.

And this is just one of the many fun physical changes. I, like so many other women, spent the ’70s "getting in touch with my body." And every other body I could find. Now, a quickie takes an hour. But it is time well spent, trust me.

Next I got to know Dear Mary, the mentor. Younger women are asking me for guidance, and I am surprised to find that I have gained enough perspective on my younger life to actually be able to give good advice. If not good advice, to be able to honestly reassure them that "this too shall pass." If unable to reassure them, to have enough sense to put them in a cab home. This makes me realize for sure that I am no longer "younger" myself. I am smug.

Enter Carrie. She makes me see that the bars have lost their allure. I will shut up here before I offend our advertisers. See, another good thing about getting older, I know when to shut up.

I also know when to speak up. At least Hildegard does. Under her tutelage, I find that I have gone from corporate clone (each against all) to community worker (a place at the table for everyone). No one is more surprised than I at this change of events.

So, I sit here with Whilimena, Mike, Iris, the Invisible Woman, Hortense, Dear Mary, Carrie, and Hildegard. (Don’t worry, reader, both my wife and dear neighbor are shrinks.) They have shown me that each of us can be who and what we are, unconstrained by what we "should do."

Know what? I don’t mind getting older at all.

D.L. Murphy is a rapidly-aging woman who lives and writes in Houston and Galveston. She may be reached at possumproducts@cs.com.