Are You the Sweaty Office Lady?

Who do you see when you look in the mirror each morning?

If your morning once-over is a quickie glance in the mirror, you might see a sexy woman-of-a-certain-age smiling back. If you study that reflection a little too long or a little too hard, you’re likely to notice what your up-and-coming millennial co-workers see. The Sweaty Office Lady.

Co-workers won’t say it to your face

If you’re stumbling into the office all hot-flashy and sweaty, your coworkers are thinking, SOL. If you’re directing business meetings with a laser pointer in one hand and a battery-operated fan in the other, know that your sweaty face is big-time coffee break gossip. If your sweaty, runny make up triggers pointing, staring, and a giggle or two, you've become an official office anecdote.

When you carry a backup outfit in your briefcase. When you shoot malicious looks without consideration for how they'll be received, your fellow employees, especially those self-promoting millennials, have surely discussed your bad attitude behind your back. They might not call you the Sweaty Office Lady to your face, but you can bet that's what they're thinking.

The Sweaty Office Lady fools you

So you've danced through your 40s and entered your 50s with a prancing strut. You're slim, trim, and still sexy. (Of course, if you were younger you wouldn't have to use the word sexy with a qualifier.) You can still attract and seduce younger guys, so why not?

You probably think you’ve beaten menopause at its own game. You might actually believe the anti-aging, anti-flashing, anti-chin-sagging hype that led you to hang out at overpriced cosmetics counters. You might actually think there is such a thing as gliding through those mean middle years without a hitch.

The Sweaty Office Lady stops all that nonsense 

If you're in denial about the true state of things in Menopauseland, it's time to understand this cold, hard fact. No matter what you do, early one morning or late one evening, you will look in the mirror and you will see the Sweaty Office Lady staring back.

You can slather on those night creams for youthful cheeks. You can take fish oil for your heart, Ginko for your brain and a handful of pills for a youthful energy burst.

You can rise early to jog before the sun comes up, but the reality of a soft-in-the-middle body will eventually ruin your dreams of an eternally hard body (A little plastic surgery might help.)

It’s sad indeed, but you can moisturize, exercise, stretch, and jog until you’re smooth and toned from head to toe, but the Sweaty Office Lady will prevail.

Her arrival might be the final surprise after years of barely noticeable flashes, sweats, and creaky joints. She could very well sneak into your mirror during those first days of menopause---like an early party guest--- as soon your hormones start slipping away.

What to do...what to do?

If you’ve already met the Sweaty Office Lady in your morning mirror, you have a host of options to keep her in her place. At least for a while.

• Vitamins, hormones, and supplements do help you chase away that dragged-out, energy-sucked feeling. 

• Reapply runny makeup multiple times daily. Better still, stop wearing it. 

• Exercise tightens some of your loosening places. 

• There’s plastic surgery. A tightening here, a tuck there can bring back some your youthful look. 

The one sure way to get rid of the Sweaty Office Lady in your mirror is to wait her out. Eventually, the heat stops. The sweat stops. Eventually, you can put away your fan and start wearing makeup and long-sleeved sweaters again.

Remember, menopause is a temporary state of being. It goes away eventually--for most women anyway. Then those office millennials will have to think of other nasty insults for the bitchy boss lady.

Carol