Under the Hormonal Weather

"Rainy days and Mondays always get me down."--the Carpenters Can you imagine what a rainy Monday does to me??! Actually, it's not raining now, but it's so dark and gray that it may as well be. I've noticed that my emotions are increasingly affected by the weather these days. And by songs on the radio...Hallmark commercials....and burnt toast. Sometimes I feel like I'm a different person. Ask Fred, he can tell you. For him it's probably like living with a different person.
Are hormones really this powerful? Is this what the next 5+ years will be like as I begin the great adventure called menopause? Should I just go live in a tent in the back yard until it's over? I remember Archie Bunker on All in the Family telling his wife Edith, "Just change, dammit!" I wish it were that fast and easy!
Last year I read a book called The Female Brain. Its basic premise is that a woman's life is controlled by her hormones from birth through menopause. I could relate to much of what the author described, feeling relieved that I wasn't the "only one." According to her, during menopause women become more about "me." Instead of going along agreeably with the wishes of everyone else as we've done for the past 20 or so years--what movie to see, which restaurant to go to, etc.--we now want to do what we want to do, and we aren't afraid to say so! This is the most obvious change I've noticed in myself. I don't have the patience or desire to censor my responses or defer to someone else's wishes. But that is not "me"!! I hope those who know me best would agree with that! I've always tried to put family and friends first and be agreeable, compromising, compliant...but I sure don't feel that way now. As I told Fred: "This is the new me--get used to it!"
I look back over the years and think of women I've known--family, co-workers, friends--who suddenly morphed into super-bitches when they were in their 40s and 50s. Now I get it. I forgive them all. I hope my nearest and dearest will forgive me, too.