The Polar Bear Years

 

About five years ago my friend Kate and I birthed the organization Launch Your Pause. We created and hosted a three-day retreat, Put Some Claws in Your Pause, offering women at all stages of menopause an opportunity to learn about, explore and celebrate all things menopause. A big part of the retreat is the opportunity to be around other women at a similar crossroads.

The truth about menopause is that it is a pause. “Meno” means monthly so technically, menopause is a pause from the meno, or the monthly period we’ve been experiencing over the course of our fertile years. There are so many jacked-up ways that our society has repurposed the concept of menopause. The medical world has done ridiculously little to understand menopause and most women are left to find their own answers to confusing questions about both physical, mental, and spiritual health.

Many women feel like it is a death sentence — thin hair, crepey skin, stomach paunch, sleepless nights with no libido. I know that before I intentionally reframed menopause and turned it into something meaningful and worthy of ritualized attention, I thought about it that way.

This year will be our fourth annual Put Some Claws in Your Pause overnight retreat. We basically do the same thing each year — writing, yoga, meditating, sharing meals and hot tubs and saunas, and rich conversation — but it never gets old. These years are important. They represent our time to pause and reflect. What comes out of this intentional experience is boundless…. if we give ourselves a real pause.

I recently read Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey by Florence Williams. The book, a memoir augmented by a fascinating collection of scientific questions and answers about aging and emotions, begins when the author is fifty years old and going through an unexpected, unwanted divorce.

At one point in the book, Williams shares a scene from a conversation she had with an anthropologist about his work with an Inuit woman. After completing his interviews, the anthropologist says to the woman,

“I see everything but the years from when you were 50–54.”

“Oh, I have no words for those years,” she replied

“Why not?”

“In those years,” she told him, “I was a polar bear.”

In “those years” that woman felt different; she felt like a polar bear. I’ve talked to women who feel like they are losing their minds — they can’t sleep, they lose interest in things that used to mean something to them, they suddenly, inexplicably hate their spouses and children. 

The polar bear years are different. These are years when we see women change careers, relationships, and fashion sensibilities. This is the period when women take off and live in another country, or travel cross country in a camper van for a year or two. These are years when, as my friend Molly says, “your give-a-damn is broke.”

The polar bear pause is real and it deserves to be honored, attended to and ritualized. The culmination of William’s wonderful book is her taking a solo paddling voyage for three months. Her vast emotional landscape is mirrored in the terrain and waterways she covers on her journey. She gave herself a well-deserved pause, an honoring of her life stage. 

Though it’s only three days, I hope that the women who come to our retreat get a taste of this kind of ritual. I hope they will feel the symbolism in taking a pause out of the grind of day-to-day life to honor themselves as polar bears for a few days.