A lovely evening

A lovely evening

I recently invited one of my friends round for a Saturday evening meal and catch-up. We live quite a way from each other, and we both work full time and are generally very busy people, so getting together now and again is a rare treat. She said that she also had a friend who was into the ‘same things’ as us and could she come along as well? I said yes, of course.

We had a lovely (healthy) meal, a not so healthy, but yummy, chocolate cake, we shared a bottle of red wine and we chatted for hours and hours! We all love travelling to foreign countries, are all into health and all at various stages of the menopause and beyond. We shared our travel adventures, our health tips and recipes and our menopause symptoms, both physical and emotional and talked about our hopes and dreams for the future.

After they left I realised what a lovely evening it had been. I really enjoyed the friendship and support and thought how lucky I was to be able to chat about all these things.

This has really brought home to me how important friendship and support are during the menopause. Recently I have had a number of women saying that they don’t have anyone to talk to or discuss their problems with and that they feel they are the only ones suffering, and this does make me sad. The menopause is a strange time for us women; both physical and emotional symptoms can appear that puzzle or upset us or make us question who we are. Being able to voice these thoughts and get a nod of support or understanding makes us feel less alone and more able to cope.

There are so many women out there going through the menopause, so why not start a little support group with friends and friends’ friends or even at your workplace? I am sure you’ll get lots of takers. Even meeting once a month and chatting can be so beneficial and you could even suggest a meal and therapeutic shared bottle of wine!