Day 83, August 13

If there's one thing that menopausal women are on intimate terms with, it's guilt.  We wear it.  We eat it.  Indeed, we feed on it.  This doubles, or triples, if you are an MMW (Menopausal Mormon Woman). 

I can hear you Young Mormon Women (YMWs) now, crying, "Hey, we have guilt, too."

I know.  I feel your pain.  The difference is MMWs have thirty plus additional years of guilt on you.  What do we feel guilty about?

As a start:

Our children, now grown, have come back to us, complaining, "You did that TO me."  "You didn't do that FOR me."  "You spent more on HIM than you did on ME."  And they're right.

Our husbands complain, "You've let yourself go.  You're no longer the young, beautiful woman I married."  They're right.

If our parents are still alive, they tell us that we haven't done enough for them.  Right, again.

And then there's the church:

Have you done your missionary work?  (No.)
Have you done your genealogy work? (No.)
Have you done your visiting teaching? (Well, sort of.)
Have you participated in every service project (which number approximately 5 a week)? (No.)
Have you pulled weeds at the stake farm?
Have you cleaned the chapel this week? (No.)
Have you put 200% into your church calling? (No.)
Have you cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad? (No.)

Well, you get the idea.

Yes, guilt is our constant companion.  We take it to bed with us at night and wake up with it in the morning.  We take it to the grocery store with us when we are tempted to buy a box of Oreos.  We take it shopping with us when we try on a pair of pants and find we can no longer get in to the size we once wore.  We take it to church where we're told "You're not doing enough.  You're not good enough.  You will never be good enough." 

We just take it.