When Menopause Comes

If there is one sure thing in every woman’s life, it is that sooner or later menopause will come. When that stage of life arrives, many will look back to consider how their life has been and what they have done with it. Very likely they will also think about what they have left sown in their families and in the society in which they have lived.

Sadly, a few women who live in the world of lust and love being the center of attention through immoral scandals think that women who do not lead a life of sexual license, and who also ask for respect for public morals, must simply be menopausal.

But behind those uncovered bodies (which require a whole lifetime of daily hours of exercise, surgery and so on) and those smiles they display for the cameras, there may lie something worse than mere menopause: an immense sadness at knowing they are valued and sought after for what they show on the outside or for their lustful acts, and not for what they may have in their minds or their hearts.

Some months ago I saw an interview with the very beautiful former Colombian model Amada Rosa. With tears in her eyes, she told how much she regretted her past life and the great harm she had done to herself and others. She described how unhappy she was at the time when she enjoyed immense financial and media success. She said she went through terrible moments of great loneliness and pain, and that often behind the smiles you see on camera there lies great sadness and a great inner emptiness (link to the interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g2aY-Zh37Q).

I found something similar some weeks ago in an excellent video on YouTube, “Love Without Regret” (http://www.youtube.com.watch?v=In2ZccckI4), in which a young man and a young woman give a talk to an audience of dozens of young people. The speaker, who is about 25, leaves the audience stunned when she tells how her life of casual sex began at 15. She says she put on a big smile in front of her friends at parties and so on, but that when she was alone she felt completely sad and empty. In the video the young woman says her body gradually became a thing, a piece of merchandise to be used and thrown away. The young man speaks about the harm of pornography and explains very clearly that men and women are something more than a body for having sex whenever and with whomever.

Coming back to menopause, I think that when that moment comes to a woman, she will take it according to how she has lived her life. If she is a woman who has been busy with many things (raising a marriage and a family, studying, working, educating her children and so on), that stage of life will not bring her many headaches or make her any less happy than she already is, because her life has been based on something much deeper than living for a 36-24-36 figure or believing that the only thing in life that will make her happy is sexual pleasure 24 hours a day.

Venezuelan women, who have earned a great place in this country’s history, and not by putting on vulgar public shows but by being intelligent, upright, creative, go-getting and “all-terrain” women, know that their body is not a mere object but something very special to give to the man of their life. Venezuela is full of beautiful, intelligent and well-educated women. It is a joy to see our universities full of them, and to see them later show their excellence in the professions they choose, many of them standing out internationally. They are women who have developed their intelligence and their will in an exemplary way. In this way they are preparing to face menopause and old age, when no surgery can save us from our years, and when the only thing that can keep our joy and youthfulness of spirit will be the way we have cultivated our minds and our souls.

It is always good to ask ourselves (whatever our age): what are we doing with our lives? How are we treating the wonderful body and soul God gave us? What are we sowing in the society in which we live? How are we preparing for menopause or old age, since all of us, whether we like it or not, will have to live through those stages of life?