Lyn Routledge - Bristol

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Lives in Bristol

Age 49

Aerialist

Performing on the SS great Britain in Bristol

Relaxing with a cooked breakfast

I wake up earlier, so from being someone who would wake up at 10, 11am I now wake up at 7am. I’m still able to chill and have a cup of tea in bed and catch up with the news, but unless I go to bed earlier, I just feel knackered.At least I get my admin done in the mornings though. Hot flushes made me feel like I was coming down with an illness, I didn’t really know what it was. Symptom wise, suddenly getting night sweats. I haven’t really had mood swings. We live in a society that is quite removed from the cycles in our lives. So turning 50 is “marked” or “celebrated” more than the changes women naturally go through.

For years my period came with the full moon - I didn’t write down when my periods were, but I’d look to the moon. I enjoyed that direct connection with the phases of the moon, so there’s a bit of lamenting the loss of connection to that cycle. It’s time to embrace being a crone, and the role of wise women. Because I’ve never wanted children, I don’t feel the pain of not being able to have them and I recognise that must be hard for a lot of women.As an aerialist, in my 40’s I’ve been largely employed by women, not men.And as I approach 50 I feel like that’s starting to change, bizarrely. I think we live in a youth obsessed culture, and women are told that the worst thing you can do is get old, whole industries exist to mask ageing. If men went through menopause, we’d know so much more about it. As women we’re shamed about so many things that are what it means to be a woman. We’re shamed about periods, breast feeding, menopause. If you want to know about the menopause you have to go and find out about it.

You have to do your own research, it’s just not part of the cultural information we have available to us.

Lyn Routledge

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