Hot flashes don’t have to stop travel. One writer shares how she’s adapted her trips during perimenopause, from packing smarter to choosing cooler destinations.
When I was a younger woman, I didn’t spend much time thinking about what life as a perimenopausal woman would be like. I’m not even sure twenty-something me had a solid grasp of what perimenopause or menopause was, beyond being something that happened to old people. But time marched on, and while I don’t consider myself old, my body often has other ideas.
If you haven’t experienced the joys of perimenopause, picture yourself as a human BBQ grill, one where someone else controls the temperature and randomly cranks it to broil when you’re doing something important or enjoyable. Everyone’s symptoms are different, but when I’m in the throes of a hot flash, I feel so intensely heated from the inside that I’m genuinely surprised my face isn’t stop-sign red and I still look relatively normal.
I may be fighting the urge to rip off my blouse and set the thermostat to a frosty 62 degrees, but most people don’t realize what’s happening unless I tell them. Sometimes the frantic fanning gives me away.