You have been the lamp in everyone’s window. This is the season to turn one toward yourself.

You know exactly who has a dental appointment on Thursday, whose shoes no longer fit, which parent needs a ride to which specialist, and what the pediatrician said about the permission slip. You could recite the entire household calendar in your sleep. Some nights, awake at 3 a.m., you do.

Now try a different question: when did you last do something simply because it felt good? Not productive. Not healthy. Not for anyone else.

If the answer takes a minute, you are in excellent company. For decades you have been the lamp in everyone’s window, steady and warm and always on. Nobody asked what it costs to keep a lamp burning that long, and nobody mentioned that the lamp was allowed to turn around.

By the end of this post, you will understand why pleasure gets harder to reach in perimenopause, why it matters more now, not less, and how to bring it back in small, ordinary ways that fit inside a Tuesday.

Why joy can feel farther away

If you have felt flatter, edgier, or more tired than your life explains, your body is part of the story.

The Menopause Society notes that estrogen receptors are widely distributed in the brain, including regions involved in mood, and that mood symptoms may be related to the big swings in estrogen that happen during perimenopause. The precise mechanism isn’t known, and stressful life circumstances and sleep changes can play a part too. Add a full calendar and a few people who depend on you, and the load is real.

None of this means you have lost your capacity for joy. It means the signal can get noisy, and the old strategy of running on duty alone costs more than it used to.

TMS also makes a point that deserves a gold star: emotional health in perimenopause calls for a balance between nurturing yourself and meeting the obligations of work and caring for others. Many women can name their stress with precision and still find it hard to take time for themselves.

That is not a personality flaw. That is a habit, and habits can be rewritten.

The story you were handed

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that care flows in one direction. Outward. To children, to a spouse, to aging parents, to the team, to the client. Pleasure became a reward you earned once the list was finished, and the list, as you have noticed, is never finished.

No one is to blame for that, least of all you. Menopause care has focused on counting symptoms, and the culture has spent generations counting duties. Almost no one built a conversation around the question: what makes you feel alive?

Regena Thomashauer, founder of Mama Gena’s School of Womanly Arts, takes up that question in her book Pussy: A Reclamation. Her argument, in short, is that pleasure is a source of power and energy for women, not a luxury to be postponed. She encourages women to practice pleasure the way they would practice any other skill, with intention and repetition.

“Pleasure shifts your chemistry…

Pleasure slingshots a woman into a new paradigm.”

Pussy: A Reclaimation

pg. 43

Whatever you make of her style, the idea fits this season well. A woman who spends decades turning her care outward has earned the right to turn some of it back.

Eight ways to turn the lamp around

You do not need a retreat or a free weekend. You need small permissions, repeated. Pick one this week and let it be easy.

In your body

1. Dance while you cook. When the pasta water starts to boil, put on one song and move. Do it again while you get ready for work. No audience, no choreography, no calorie count. Movement for the sheer joy of it counts.
2. Slow your touch down. Work hand cream in as though it were a ritual. Stand in the shower a minute longer. Hug someone for longer than feels polite. Johns Hopkins Medicine points to time with the people you love, even hugs, as one way to help the body settle out of stress.

In your day

3. Swap the podcast for a playlist. Choose one commute a week and leave the podcast behind. Press play on the songs that carried you through your twenties, the ones that made you roll the windows down. Yes, even the woman who never misses an episode is allowed a Tuesday of pure mood-boosting jams. Sing badly. It counts.
4. Use the good things now. The candle, the perfume, the linen napkins, the lipstick you have been saving. The occasion is a Tuesday. You are the guest of honor.
5. Eat one meal sitting down. On a real plate, away from your screen, with the first bite taken slowly. It takes eleven minutes and rearranges your afternoon.

In your senses and your circle

6. Wear the outfit. The one that makes you stand taller. Put it on for an ordinary day, not just for the meeting that justifies it.
7. Send a voice note to a friend. Skip the text, say something ridiculous, and let her laugh. Pleasure travels better in company.
8. Let intimacy count. Pleasure includes touch, with a partner or on your own. Changes in desire are common in this transition and worth raising with a clinician, not enduring in silence.

Start with one. Practice it. Notice how your body answers.

When to talk to your doctor

Pleasure is not a cure, and you do not have to manufacture it on command. If you have lost interest in things you used to enjoy, feel hopeless, or have trouble concentrating and sleeping most of the day, nearly every day, for two weeks or more, please talk with a healthcare professional. That is a symptom worth treating, not a character flaw. The same goes for changes in desire, painful sex, or mood shifts that are affecting your work or relationships.

A clinician with menopause training can walk you through options, including ones that address hormones. If the first conversation feels dismissive, it is reasonable to ask again or to find someone who knows this territory. If you ever feel unsafe or think about harming yourself, call or text 988 in the US, or contact your local emergency number, right away.

This post is not a substitute for medical advice.

A Final Thought

You have been a lamp for so long that you may have forgotten the light was yours first. You are not selfish for turning it toward yourself, and you will not run dry by doing it. A woman who knows what delights her is a better friend, a clearer leader, and a more present mother, partner, and daughter, because she has something to give from.

So tonight, put on one song and dance while the water boils. Tomorrow, take the playlist to work.

Turn the lamp around. Notice what it lights up.

Your time is valuable, and I hope this was too. Thank you for reading.

XOXO

Alice

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From Alice

If something in this made you recognize yourself, come closer.

Every week, I write about the science of the midlife body, what may actually help, and the larger questions medicine alone cannot answer.

Better information. Deeper questions. A different way to become.

[Letters from Alice →]

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