Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

The hot flashes have intensified. I may be having a conversation or reading a book or standing when all of a sudden sweat drips down my neck, puddling in my bra, a moisture moustache forms, and my face transforms to tomato. This is not the heat wave of August 2015, but the heat of 54.

Sweating while standing is not a sight for the delicate. It turns out that I have a predilection for hot pink tee shirts, which tend to show sweat. My younger daughter took a look at me in one of my series, and stated, “Why are you sweating. You’re not doing anything.” Oh, the ignorance of the young and uninitiated.

Not only have my flashes multiplied and intensified this summer, they have also gotten me into trouble.

There I was, in the very back of a very big classroom when the lecturer decided that he must show off his classroom management skills in addition to his grasp of the Nazi mindset. “Would you mind telling us what’s so interesting?’ he called out as I spoke briefly to my new BFF.

Oh, I thought in the moment within the embarrassment, he does not know who he is talking to. I was mad. He was up there talking for hours without giving us a bathroom break and he’s complaining about my rudeness. Oh no. Isn’t talking a human right/need? How else can we express and share our experiences and our knowledge, as he was going to do for five days—in a very one-sided way.

In my loudest teacher voice, I said, “I told her that I’m having a hot flash.”

Sometimes it feels wonderful to be a big mouth and that, surely, was one of those moments.