Hot flashes, hilarious timing, and the rise of the radiant menopausal woman.

A Toast to Heat: Unexpected Humility on a Verandah

It began, as many witchy things do, on a breezy verandah with wine. The kind of Australian night where laughter folds easily into the stars and your bra has long since been abandoned on the back of a cane chair. I was with my dearest friends. Even though we’d known each other going on fifty years, it goes in a flash. Fifty years of friendship, raising kids, grandkids, doing each other’s hair, holding each other in the best of times and the worst, sharing wisdom, ridiculousness, and pantyhose—and we were doing what menopausal women do best once they start wearing the red and purple: talking about our vaginas without apology.

My oldest friend and I had, inevitably, begun the menopausal meander—the curious catalogue of symptoms and surprises that no one really prepares you for. As women do, we shared our current top three bodily betrayals like menu options at a wine bar: “Dry eyes,” “Zero patience,” “Feeling hot all the time, even when it’s raining.”

I casually remarked, “I don’t really get hot flushes—just the occasional nighttime ripple. Mostly, I just run hot now. Like… warmer than usual. I used to be a cold frog!”

And just like that—BOOM. My body heard me.

Enter: the Tsunami of Sweat.

One heartbeat later, I was drenched. A complete, theatrical saturation. Hairline drip. Upper lip rivulets. Waterworks down the back of the knees. I was, in a word, soused. Not with alcohol, but with a physiological gag pulled straight from the universe’s slapstick comedy vault.

We howled. Uncontrollably. Not from embarrassment—but from that kind of menopausal magic where your body becomes your own comedic sidekick. My friend wiped her eyes. “You just conjured it, babe. Like a shaman of sweat.”

There is Nothing Like Being the Hottest Woman in the Room

It was absurd. It was glorious. And in its own way, it was deeply poetic.

Menopause isn’t just about symptoms. It’s a strange, wonderful riddle. A hormonal Houdini act. A cellular reset. You start losing things—your oestrogen, your filter, your 2am tolerance for bullshit. But you also start finding things you forgot you left behind: Boundaries. Laughter that cracks you open. Desire that no longer begs for permission.

And sometimes, you find yourself on a verandah in a soaking linen dress, glowing like a pagan goddess, laughing your literal tits off.

Let’s Talk About the Sudden Heat

No one warns you about the comedy.

There’s a folklore that menopause is all clinical sheets and solemn silences. A hushed, hormonal decline. But there’s also a sacred hilarity to it—the divine humour of suddenly needing to take off your bra in the supermarket because your nipples feel like they’re broadcasting on AM radio.

Science tells us that hot flushes are a result of hypothalamic recalibration: your internal thermostat is glitching out due to the drop in oestrogen. The brain, like a confused parent, keeps sending full-body heat blasts in response to mild stimuli. Room temperature? Better prep for a sauna.

But here’s the kicker: this heat doesn’t just burn—it burns off. The crap. The old performative coolness. The need to stay polite. What’s left is a woman blazing in her truth. Sometimes literally.

This Isn’t a Decline. It’s a Reboot.

Menopause is not the end. It’s a drumroll.

It’s not “the change” as in change-and-die. It’s the change—as in change-and-rise. Women who enter their menopausal years enter a fire that isn’t just uncomfortable, it’s transformative. Alchemical. We’re not drying up—we’re distilling down to essence.

Menopause teaches us to unearth delight in unlikely places: in electric fans and spontaneous foot baths, in loose cotton shifts and ice packs tucked into bras. In the ability to find laughter in a heatwave.

Sensual, Sacred, Sweaty: The Power of No Longer Caring

There’s something wildly sensual about owning your heat. Not performative sexy—but something deeper. Rooted. Earthy. A woman in full knowing. A woman who doesn’t flinch when her body speaks. Who doesn’t apologise for mopping her brow mid-meeting or shedding clothes like a snake shedding skins.

The body remembers. It always does.

And when the thermostat is high, when the mirror glistens back your flush, you are not undone—you are re-wilded. Menopause is not a phase to be managed. It is a rite of passage. Like the bleeding that began our journey, this burning is a holy threshold.

The Mystery of Saying the Thing That Then Happens

Let’s not ignore the spooky timing.

How often do we speak aloud a change and then feel it take root in real time? When I said I ran hot, I didn't expect to become a living geyser of sweat. But maybe menopause is a little bit magical that way. Like it’s waiting for you to notice before it shows off.

Or maybe the universe has a wicked sense of humour.

Either way, it’s a partnership.

A dance between you and the timeline of your own becoming.

A Final Word (While Still Glowing)

So here’s to the flush. The hot hands. The damp temples. The new wardrobe of breathable fabrics. The fan on your nightstand. The mid-sentence clothes change. The knowing glances between women of a certain heat.

Here’s to laughing so hard your core temperature rises another two degrees. Here’s to being the hottest woman in the room—not because of a trend or a tan or a tryst—but because your body decided to become a little sun.

It’s not a curse. It’s a combustion.

And it’s kind of fabulous.

An Invitation to Those Who Are Feeling the Heat

To every woman waking in a night-sweat or laughing mid-hot flush: you are not alone, and you are not broken. You are blazing a trail—radiant, ridiculous, revered.

We invite you to let it be holy. Let it be hilarious. Let it be yours.

Because maybe you, too, are the hottest woman there.

And maybe that’s exactly what the world needs right now.