This Isn't the Body I Thought I'd Have. It's the One I'm In.

There was apparently a meeting where my body made several decisions about its future. I was not invited. Had I attended, I would have raised some questions — who authorized the redistribution of weight, for instance, why my internal thermostat now appears to be operated by a mischievous toddler, and exactly when gravity was promoted to senior management. There would have been minutes.

But here we are. One of the quieter conversations around perimenopause and menopause isn't really about symptoms at all. It's about recognition — or, some mornings, the lack of it. You catch yourself in a mirror, step out of the shower, pull on a favorite pair of pants, or see a photograph taken from an angle that should frankly require written consent, and there's a moment: when did this become my body?

It's a complicated question, because our bodies have histories. They have carried us through careers, relationships, pregnancies for some and illness for others, grief, joy, sex, sleepless nights, caregiving, bad decisions, excellent meals, and several decades of being told what they ought to look like. Then perimenopause arrives and changes the conversation again. Body composition shifts. Muscle and bone suddenly matter enormously. Sleep changes, skin changes, sexual health changes, weight starts behaving differently, energy feels unfamiliar. And sometimes the woman living inside all of it thinks: I don't know this body.

The hostile takeover

The temptation is to turn that feeling immediately into a project. Fix it. Shrink it. Fight it. Get the old body back. But I've been wondering about a different question: what if the goal isn't to get our old bodies back? They brought us here, and thank goodness they did. Maybe the invitation now is to understand the bodies we're actually living in.

That isn't surrender. It isn't giving up on strength, health, movement, sexuality, or feeling terrific in your clothes — quite the opposite. Understanding gives us more choices, not fewer. But there is a profound difference between caring for a body and conducting a hostile takeover of one, and women have been encouraged toward the latter for a very long time. We're sold the idea that aging is a defect, that menopause is something to hide, that wrinkles need correcting, weight needs conquering, gray hair needs explaining, and a changing body represents some personal failure of project management.

Meanwhile, the body itself is standing there saying: excuse me. I have carried you for fifty-something years. Perhaps we could discuss this before you declare war.

Perhaps we should.

A different kind of room

Maybe what we need are rooms where we can talk honestly about what's changing without immediately being sold something to fix it. Where we can ask clinicians what the evidence actually says about strength and bones and hormones and sleep and sex and weight and mental health — and the parts nobody thought to warn us about. Where one woman can say, "I don't feel like myself," and nobody rushes in to tell her how she ought to feel.

That's the kind of room we're building at Sofrena. Not a room where someone stands at the front and explains womanhood to a room full of women — that would be brave. We want experts, evidence, curiosity, and conversation. We want women asking the questions there's never time for in a medical appointment. We want laughter, because some of this is genuinely funny, and honesty, because some of it absolutely isn't. And we want space for the possibility that this stage of life isn't only about losing what we had. Maybe it's also about getting reacquainted.

This body has been places

The body I have today isn't the body I had at twenty-five. Thank God. That woman had no idea what was coming. This body has been places. It has survived things. It has loved people. It has changed — and yes, there are days when I would like to speak personally with whoever moved everything around without consulting me.

But this is the body I'm in. I would like to understand her. I would like to take care of her. And I would very much like to know what the hell she is doing.

If you would too, come talk with us at our first gathering — get first word on the dates. We have questions. We have experts. And we're making room for the conversation.