Nobody Told Us About This Part

One of the strangest things about midlife is how quietly it arrives. There is no grand announcement. No one pulls you aside and explains that your relationship with yourself is about to change. Instead, it shows up in ordinary moments. You walk into a room and forget why you went there. You lose a word you have known your entire life. You reread the same paragraph three times and still cannot remember what it said. At first, you assume you are tired, stressed, overworked, or simply carrying too much. Then the moments begin to accumulate, and you realize something deeper is happening.

The perimenopausal brain is a fascinating subject, yet it remains one of the least discussed aspects of a woman's life. Some days I feel sharp, focused, and capable of taking on the world. Other days I feel like I am wandering through unfamiliar territory trying to make sense of changes nobody prepared me for. The experience can be both humbling and frustrating because it challenges the relationship we have built with our own minds.

What I find most interesting is how little preparation many of us received for this stage of life. Looking back, there were countless conversations about becoming a woman, understanding our cycles, avoiding pregnancy, and eventually navigating motherhood if that became part of our journey. Entire industries were built around helping women understand fertility and reproduction. What I do not remember is anyone explaining what would happen decades later when our bodies began changing again.

There was no roadmap for understanding why sleep might suddenly become elusive, why our energy could fluctuate without warning, or why our emotions might feel closer to the surface. Nobody explained that our relationship with stress would change or that our bodies might begin asking something different of us. Instead, many of us arrived here carrying pieces of information gathered from friends, social media, and internet searches, trying to assemble our own understanding of what was happening.

That reality becomes even more frustrating when you consider how little attention has historically been given to women's health. I recently read that Melinda Gates is investing heavily in menopause research, and while I am grateful for that work, I found myself wondering why it has taken so long. Women have always moved through these transitions. Why are we only now beginning to invest serious resources into understanding them?

The question becomes even more complicated when I think about Black women. We are often missing from research studies, missing from wellness conversations, and missing from the narratives used to shape public understanding of women's health. Yet we are expected to navigate the same changes while carrying the additional realities that shape our lives and experiences.

What makes this season particularly challenging is that life does not slow down while we are trying to understand what is happening. Careers continue demanding our attention. Families still need support. Communities still rely on us. Many of us still have dreams we want to pursue, places we hope to visit, businesses we want to build, books we want to write, and experiences we want to have. The desire to keep growing remains fully intact even when the mind and body begin operating differently than they once did.

I think that is why so many women feel disoriented during this stage of life. It is not simply the physical changes. It is the experience of trying to reconcile who we have always been with who we are becoming. We are learning how to navigate unfamiliar territory without a map while still being expected to function as though nothing has changed.

Perhaps that is why this moment deserves more conversation than it receives. Not because there is something wrong with us, but because there is something significant happening to us. The more honestly we talk about it, the less alone we become. And for many women, that understanding may be just as important as any treatment, supplement, or medical breakthrough that eventually arrives.