A lyrical letter from a future self reframes menopause and midlife as a turning point toward rest, self-trust and rebirth.
Menopause—and the conversations surrounding it—is having a moment: Celebrities are speaking out, a commercial marketplace is booming, and state legislatures have introduced a wave of reforms over the past year. But as public attention grows, so too must our scrutiny of who benefits from this surge of visibility … and who risks being left behind.
This essay is part of the latest Women & Democracy installment, Flipping the Menopause Script Is Essential to Democracy, published in the middle of Black History Month, in partnership with Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause. This series helps flip the script, building on seven years of narrative and reproductive justice work led by Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause and commemorates “Iranti Ẹ̀jẹ̀: Remembering Blood,” a 2025 intergenerational gathering in Durham, N.C., centering marginalized menopausal communities. Menopause is not only a physical transition—it is also cultural, social and political. Recognizing its full scope is essential to advancing true health and civic equity. As one contributor reminds us: “We will not disappear with age. We will arrive.”
Editor’s note: This piece is one of three “Letters to My Future Self” featured in Flipping the Menopause Script Is Essential to Democracy, our Women & Democracy series created with BGG2SM. Blending poetry, spiritual reflection and lived experience, these letters explore menopause and midlife as sites of transformation, rest and reclamation. Together, they invite readers to imagine aging not as decline, but as a passage toward renewed power.
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Sent: to Earth on Dec. 24, 2025, EDT
From: Earth, a few thousand light-years away—and also now
Dearest,
I write to you from ‘now,’ in another space. I am not ‘ahead’ of you, as you are here too. I am parallel to your current state of being, in a reality intertwined with yours.
This is a pivotal day for the rest of your life.
You chose to release unnecessary obligations to others and care for your aching body and heart. This choice will reverberate through your bloodline.
During a time traditionally reserved for connecting with family and loved ones, oftimes to the detriment of a person’s own exhaustion and diminished funds, you chose to say, “I’m sitting this one out.” You did so with aplomb and without scorn, with commitment to nurturing the softness that is trying to germinate in your parched subconscious.
You need nerve to be free. (And you need freedom to fulfill your earthly mission.)
Your mind endured a drought of intellectualism and spiritual connectivity for two years. There was no flourishment, thus minimal joy and a foggy distance from who you knew yourself to be. Your Egungun (the honored ancestral spirits among the Yoruba people of West Africa) and I collaborated on keeping you sane, open to connecting with people who would understand and love you, and created pathways for you to be with the land you resided on.
You took to the nourishment they gave but dried up quickly. The resources were not enough.
You withered. When tragedy struck your home, those critical connections that formed a base of comfort and power, you died. It was not a singular blow but compounded.
For the past three months of your life, you’ve treaded the Kalunga River into Ku Mpemba (the Spiritual Realm). It was there you heard the voices of the sage warriors of your bloodline for the first time.
They are now preparing you for rebirth. What is threadbare and shorn is being removed. These ancestors call on you to fortify your throat with honesty. You learn that each truthful response you give to a request of your ase (personal power) that is not aligned with your well-being or destiny weaves a stronger skin for your evolving body.
You grimace at your soft belly, creased at the top, creating a fold and rounded at the bottom. It is a result of age and stress and a sign of endurance and protection against the biting winds of the winter you’re in. Your body is grounding you while you traverse a shifting, rugged terrain. The tundra you reside in now is temporary. It is necessary for you to develop the voice and heart that will not only feel deeply but will slash away and disconnect what is harmful. The nurturing dreamer is being initiated into the cult of sage warriors guiding you. You will not recognize yourself in the beginning but soon you will remember that this is a part of you from long ago.
In my timeline, your crystalline heart beams into a room before you enter. You no longer worry about it being taken advantage of. You have learned how to feel deeply, perceive the world without breaking. Those you encounter learn that a crystal heart—your heart—isn’t fragile. It is fully prismatic, reflecting truths and refracting lies. You are a reflection of the pleasure and pain inside you and around you. Your mouth shares the genealogy of these experiences with a clarity you have yet to feel. Your transparency is now protection, repellent and a tool for transformation. It is biting truth and enticing maturity.
Some advice so you can meet me in the parallel reality:
That chasm in your chest
It’ll heal.
So long as you take pen to paper, teeth and mouth
to say what you mean.
Do what you know.
And don’t you falter.
Exhale the smoke blown your way just as cool as you please.
Let the cleavage of your wound smile out at the world from your unbuttoned dress. You know how to do it. This is an exercise in nerve. You need nerve to be free. (And you need freedom to fulfill your earthly mission.)
And while you let that shit out, take you some tobacco, Florida water, gin, rose petals, efun, shea butter, honey, cacao, a sprig of mint, and roll it into a poultice. Dip a peacock quill pen into bright colored ink and pierce the poultice with the description of your next domain.
Do not plan. F e e l.
Hold the poultice to your chest and exhale some more. Keep breathing while your fingers knead the mass, your fingertips dimpling it with the stories of other Black women homemakers who crafted freedom from their hands.
Breathe while your knees bend to sow collard seeds to last you for seasons.
Breathe while your mouth tells your nephew the stories of his people, as your mind and I work to uncover more.
Breathe while your beloved kisses your lips, “Hey. Finally.”
Let your breath move you through
each thought and action.
and, still
F e e l.
You are a homemaker for many. And home is also for you. There is no honor in martyrdom.
The liminality you are in is a temporary chrysalis. Your whole being is restructuring, and you’re shedding the parts of you that are no longer useful. When you emerge, you’ll soar.
I love you and remain yours in any time and every space.
Love,
Ori
