The Time of Miracles

cover image by Scarlet Page

My aunt and I enjoy going to comedy shows together. Recently, we went to Ponte Verde Beach, Florida to see Kathleen Madigan—love her—and while there, my aunt said, “I wonder where all the miracles have gone. Why aren’t we living in that time, the time of miracles?”

Her question felt more rhetorical than inquisitive, and I’m sure she didn’t think it would sit with me for as long as it has, but it did get me thinking.

Estrogen-Powered

I foolishly wished for the end of my period, and if it remains gone by March 2026, I’ll have officially entered (and exited) menopause. Funny how you don’t know you’re in menopause until you’re out of it. Also funny how you don’t realize what Aunt Flo takes with her when she leaves.

This year has been a difficult one. It’s as if I’ve been caught in a riptide, and I’ve done the exact thing they tell you never to do: I struggled to make my way back to shore instead of just letting it take me.

In all honesty, looking back with the benefit of an estrogen-filled brain, I almost drowned. Life became heavy. Aches and pains erupted all over my body and then gradually migrated to my right side. I went to physical therapy when it was at its worst, and that helped to bring the pain level down to about an eight.

I rose each morning with tears in my eyes and a death-grip on the banister because my knees and one foot had pins and needles. Pressing the space bar irritated my right thumb, which prompted a mini experiment where I counted how many times I pressed the space bar in a given minute. I’m a writer. I’m a teacher. The space bar is like a utensil and the words are my food. Writing becomes messy without it.

Knock-Knock. Who’s There?

Then there was the “food noise.” I didn’t even know that was a term until I started to research why I was constantly hungry.

Miracle #1: Google’s Gemini (Generative AI): Estrogen acts as a powerful “metabolic thermostat” in your brain. When levels are high (like during ovulation), it effectively turns down the volume on hunger; when levels drop (as in perimenopause), that “food noise” can become a roar. Specifically, estrogen—primarily estradiol (E2)—crosses the blood-brain barrier and targets the hypothalamus, the control center for hunger and fullness and affects these four things:

Target	Action of Estrogen	Effect on “Food Noise”
1. POMC Neurons	Stimulates	Increases satiety. Alerts you when you’re full.
2. AgRP Neurons	Inhibits	Decreases hunger drives. Tells you to stop looking for and thinking about food. You’re good.
3. Leptin	Increases Sensitivity	Ensures the brain “sees” energy stores. Clears the lens so you can see how much energy you have stored (i.e. whether you should be hungry).
4. Dopamine	Enhances Signaling	Reduces the need for food-based “hits.” When this is low, the brain begins looking for a “quick fix” to boost dopamine levels, which usually manifests as cravings for high-carb, high-fat “hit” foods. This kicked my arse this year.

When your estrogen drops, these four things go haywire. Welcome to the newfound world of food noise.

Adjustment Disorder with Depressive Moods

I simply did not want to get out of bed. I did. I mean, my kids are still young enough to impress upon my life daily, but yeah, rising became a Herculean effort. It was the aches and pains, and it was the exhaustion. I’ve blogged about sleep issues before, but this time felt different.

About three or four times a week, I’d wake up in the middle of the night with the inability to fall back asleep. Over time, I learned to stop lying there and fighting the insomnia. I started meditating. While that wouldn’t drop me back off into a deep, restorative sleep, it would calm me.

Some nights, my mind was just too hyper for meditation, and on those nights I would write in my “worry” journal to release those thoughts that wouldn’t allow me to rest. Afterwards, I would get up and grade papers. Other nights, I would read. I even attempted to write a few times, but that always left me in tears because the words wouldn’t come. The analytical part of my brain was hyperactive, but the creative part was on sabbatical.

I napped at traffic lights, grateful that my car dinged when the car in front of me pulled off or when the light turned green. I walked around like a zombie, grateful for the routine to guide my actions because higher level thinking came in spurts.

Miracle #2: A Gynecologist Who Cares

I’ve been back in the U.S. for five years come January, and I’ve been through as many gynecologists. I can’t tell you if it’s because healthcare is in a real crisis or if it’s because of the explosive growth in the local population after Covid, but finding a gyne who has availability within the same quarter is hard. Finding one who stays in the same practice so you can see them the next year is even harder. Finding one who knows and has studied about menopause and its symptoms requires an advanced degree.

Dr N Glover Saved Me

I knew she was something special when she maintained eye contact and simply listened. During my annual wellness visit, she documented my symptoms and reaffirmed that as shitty as it was, what I was experiencing was normal. Yes, my family history of breast cancer likely meant I wasn’t a candidate for HRT, but she recommended I do genetic testing to look for specific mutations in “tumor suppressor” genes. She explained that normally, these genes produce proteins that find and fix broken DNA. She explained that when those genes are mutated, our bodies lose a primary defense against cancer.

I liked her because she listened. I trusted her because she listened and spoke intelligently about what I was experiencing. I respected her because she was doing all of that while on her own journey through “the change.”

I took the first test. Negative, which green-lighted the second. Also negative.

Just like that, five doctors in and five years later, I’m given the green light to take HRT.

Surprisingly, I didn’t immediately ask for a prescription. I’ve been told for years that HRT was not an option for me. What if the test results were wrong? Cancer kills people! And my girls still need me.

So, I went down the Gemini rabbit hole of probabilities and likelihoods. I continued to nap at traffic lights. I continued to wake up in the middle of the night wondering why menopause was necessary. (That led me down another Gemini rabbit hole, and the results of that research were highly interesting.) My body continued to ache, and I continued to ask myself why women didn’t commit mass suicide if this was their life without estrogen.

When did the pain ease? When did the dark thoughts stop? When would the hunger be abated?

Then one day, I looked up and it was December, and I was still 15,000 words from the end of my new novel series. I’d been struggling with the motivation to do anything but climb back in bed. Each time I looked in the mirror, it felt as if the woman staring back at me was not an ally. In fact, I didn’t even know who she was. I could tell from the dark circles tattooed under her eyes that she was tired. The clothes she wore no longer flattered her because they didn’t fit. Everything was tight—her wedding ring, her muscles, her thoughts.

She was hungry, even though she just ate. She wanted a drink, but alcohol gave her hot flashes. She’d eat an entire cake if it would make her feel better, but her hormonal shifts during perimenopause triggered her “latent, asymptomatic” celiacs, and all of a sudden, gluten hated her.

Miracle #3: HRT

Within 48 hours, my shoulder pain reduced to a level five. My hip pain was a whisper of what it was, and my knees and one foot no longer had pins and needles.

I still woke up in the night, but life felt doable given the other improvements.

At the advice of the best pharmacist in the world (my sister), I went off my supplements for a couple of weeks to give my body the chance to adjust to the HRT. Almost immediately, I started to see the irritability that the Ashwagandha root suppressed reassert itself. I gave my family a head’s up. I apologized in advance. I asked for patience, and I suggested they stop doing dumb stuff that would upset me. (My sense of humor was returning!)

Seven days after starting HRT, my shoulder pain was down to a level three, my hip pain was gone, and I started resistance training again with Apple Fitness+. I didn’t even set a goal to lose the 15-20 lbs I’ve gained this year—though I’d take it if it happened. My goal was just to feel better about myself. I was working towards happiness.

As of today, I’m two weeks in, and I have no shoulder pain. I wake up in the middle of the night, but I’m able to go back to sleep. I still have hot flashes, but like the rage, it’s manageable when I have sleep and am pain-free.

I am lighter, mentally, and it may sound melodramatic, but I forgot the sound of my laughter until yesterday, on my birthday, when my girls made me laugh so hard I cried.

The Relativity of Miracles

I have a feeling my aunt was talking about the miracles of Biblical proportion: you know, the turning of water into wine and the parting of the Red Sea.

We tend to view miracles as grand, external interventions—the feeding of multitude or the raising of the dead. But as I look at the woman in the mirror now, I realize the most profound miracles may be the ones of restoration.

The miracle isn’t just the HRT patch or the ability to genetically test. The miracle is the moment we realize that the “riptide” wasn’t trying to drown us, but was drawing our attention to the necessity of recalibration. I am aging. I am growing older, and I will no longer be able to continue as I once had. Therefore, it’s going to be imperative that I make the necessary adjustments. It’s not about the changes my “metabolic thermostat” undergoes, but the necessity of effectively utilizing the wisdom I’ve gained over the years if I am to survive.

The miracles exist in the data that frees us from false narratives, the science that heals our joints, and the sheer, stubborn evolutionary grit that allows a woman to emerge from the fog and place her fingers back at the keyboard to finally find the words to describe the view from the other side.

Our miracles aren’t spectacles; they are a quiet, relentless evolution that requires us to adapt and adjust repeatedly throughout our lifetimes. We go through the fire, we get dirty and bloody in the arena, yet we exalt one another because that is what we women do. We survive. And in that survival, we find that we aren’t just the recipients of the miracle—we bring the miracle.