Peri Peri Phase

Yup! We’ve made it to this. The spicy phase of parenting and womanhood. There’s a lot of crying, snarky comments, aggressive reactions and “my life is over” moments. If you guessed it, you are probably in this phase too, and you have my support.My son is officially experiencing the full swing of puberty and to my husband’s delight it has gotten perfectly aligned with my peri-menopause. So yes, there are two atom bombs waiting to tick at any point in time. This minefield has been quite an experience for my husband and my younger son, whose trauma diaries are surely going to have a couple of chapters on these years of our lives.

I was so excited for my son to step into his puberty, his growing up -we were all prepped for him. If he replies back, I have to be patient and respond later. If he is emotional, I have to stay beside him and assure of my presence. If he loses himself on me, I have to understand it is not about me. But then, instead of him, I was losing it all the time. I was crying in the middle of the day for no reason and snapping at people for just talking to me. Guess who’s grown up in all of this?

I went right back to my therapist and she calmly replied, “Ruchira, no your life is not over, you are graduating into peri-menopause.” Me!! Yes, me!! Already!! It took me a few days to accept her diagnosis. Now, I am observing myself whether it makes sense. But it does.So, once again I sat my sons down and explained, mummy is finally all grown up, so you are not the only one with fiery hormones, mom’s here for company. I had to inform them. It was important. I told my older one that if I snap for no reason, it is not about you, it’s about me. If I react instead of responding, that’s me too. If you see me crying, come check on me, hug me, love me -but it’s probably my hormones playing havoc. I didn’t quite expect them to understand, but I was wrong. They asked me the sweetest thing, “Mom, are any of your friends in the phase with you?” What can we do?

That was enough to make it all easier. From the next day, the games began. I was upset with my son one thing, he hears me out and then asks, “Are you really upset or is this your peri-meno reaction?” If I could put an emoji here, it would have placed the girl with her hand on her face.Now, the greetings from mom and son have changed to, “Hey puberty, what’s up?” and “Hey peri-all ok?” Laughing about the hardest transitions in life actually makes it all easier. Talking to each other makes us more empathetic to each other’s needs. Being present for one another is all one needs in this phase.We are falling in love with this peri peri, totally dramatic phase of ours. Hope you are too.