Knitting Through the Madness — A Menopausal Confession

Let me tell you about yesterday.

We went to town for groceries. Simple enough. Two shops in, my husband quietly handed me the car keys and suggested, with the patience of a man who has clearly been paying attention, that he would get the last few things. He would meet me at the car.

He is one wing short of a full angel. I want that on record.

I was angry. I was hungry. I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people existing in my general vicinity. And before you ask — yes, we had breakfast. At Mugg and Bean. I ordered the corn fritter stack and received two frittatas. I do not like eggs. I will never, under any circumstances, voluntarily order a frittata. So that was also in the emotional cocktail, simmering alongside everything else.

I have been hangry my entire life. Yesterday it was a special edition.

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The Thing Nobody Is Talking About

I am menopausal.

There. It is written. In a craft blog, of all places, which is perhaps exactly where it belongs — because I want to talk about something I have not seen discussed anywhere in the knitting and crochet community, and I suspect I am not the only one living it.

Menopause and crafting. Specifically, what menopause does to your relationship with your craft, your creative choices, and your ability to be a functional member of society while holding sharp implements.

Because it is real. Very real. And pretending otherwise helps nobody.

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What Menopause Actually Takes

Menopause robs you of things you did not expect to lose.

My taste has changed. Food I have loved my entire life no longer tastes the same. It is a small grief that catches me off guard every single time — you reach for something familiar and comforting and it is just slightly wrong, like a song played in the wrong key.

I have gained weight without any change to my lifestyle. Not a little weight. Several kilograms, arrived without invitation and apparently planning to stay. Annoying does not begin to cover it.

The overwhelm is the part I was least prepared for. The world, which has always been a moderately manageable place, has become extraordinarily loud and full of people making extraordinarily poor decisions. I do not remember there being this many idiots. I am certain they have multiplied. And for reasons I cannot explain, I seem to encounter them with increasing frequency. That is the worst part. Not the existence of the idiots. The encountering.

I should say here — if you are a menopausal woman reading this and thinking it is really not that bad — I am genuinely delighted for you. Please keep that thought to yourself. I am not trying to convince you it is bad. Do not try to convince me it is not. We are simply having different experiences and both of them are valid. Yours quietly, over there, away from me.

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The Coin Situation

We got home. I wanted to do the laundry. We are permanent campers, which means the washing machine and dryer at the campsite operate on coins.

A R5 coin with a whale on the back does not work. Too thick.

The newer R2 coins do not work either. Also too thick.

I want whoever is responsible for this to understand the magnitude of what they have done. If you are going to install coin-operated machines, you plan for the coins that actually exist in circulation. You do not leave a menopausal woman standing in a laundry room with a fistful of incorrect coins and nowhere to put her feelings.

I tried very hard to swallow the rage. I partially succeeded. Partially.

I was hoping this morning would be better. Cannabis oil and HRT at night, Lion’s Mane in the morning. A reasonable pharmaceutical approach to an unreasonable situation. It did not work. I woke up menopausal grumpy — which I believe should be a formally recognised condition — and there I stayed.

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What I Did Instead

I did what any knitter would do.

I took out the last yarn I have in sweater quantity, cast on the Waits Cardigan, and went outside to sit in the sunshine.

Here is the thing about menopause and crafting that I want to say clearly: I am a designer. I design knitwear and crochet patterns. But right now, in this season of my life, I have very little desire to design knitting patterns. Partly because crochet patterns sell better. But mostly — and this is the honest part — because when I crochet, I have to look at my hands.

When I knit, I do not.

When everything becomes this overwhelming, I do not want to look. I do not want to think. I do not want to make a single decision beyond knit stitch or purl stitch and even then the pattern tells me which one. I want to follow instructions, feel yarn running through my fingers, listen to birds, and exist quietly in the sunshine until I feel capable of facing people again.

Because menopausal women are a danger to society. Specifically, a danger to the idiots in society. And the idiots have multiplied. I see them everywhere. I encounter them constantly.

I have seen them referred to, by the excellent Facebook page Middle Age Madness, as Cuntelina. Their word, not mine. I repeat it with no apology whatsoever, because Karen is a perfectly lovely name and I have yet to meet a Karen who actually gets on my nerves. Cuntelina, on the other hand, is everywhere. She was in the shops yesterday. She was probably responsible for the coin machine situation.

If I do not knit, I will end up in the newspapers.

Something along the lines of: Woman throws annoying person with pouch full of stitch markers. More at seven.

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The Waits Cardigan

The yarn is the last sweater quantity I have. It is going to become a cardigan, one row at a time, in the sunshine, with the birds doing their thing in the background.

I am not designing it. I am not thinking about it. I am following someone else’s pattern and trusting the process and letting my hands do something repetitive and rhythmic and deeply, profoundly calming.

This is what knitting does when nothing else works. It does not solve the coin machine situation. It does not restore the foods that no longer taste right. It does not reduce the idiot population.

But it keeps my hands busy and my mind just occupied enough that the worst of the overwhelm passes without incident.

That is not nothing. On days like yesterday, that is everything.

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A Note to the Women Who Get It

If you are in this season too — welcome. Pull up a chair. Cast on something mindless. We do not have to talk about it. We can just sit here and knit until the world becomes manageable again.

And if someone suggests that it is really not that bad — hand them your needles. Pointy end first.

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The Waits Cardigan is a pattern by someone else, which is exactly why I chose it. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for yourself is follow someone else’s instructions and not think.

Middle Age Madness on Facebook is @middleagemadness — follow them if you need to feel understood.