Welcome to “Olat Shalb”, a new project that I have been dreaming about for a long time and which only makes sense to publish at the beginning of my time as a freelancer.
What will be here? A conversation and a glimpse into the lives of my friends, those of them who have lived a little longer than me and who agreed to help me map the paths I started walking on.
In three words: Preparation for menopause.
In many more words: Preparing for menopause while understanding that it’s not just heat waves, but also the desire to open your entire wingspan, and that there will also be beautiful pictures.
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The first star of the section is really a star, by any measure: Lillian Berto, 56, that the easiest way to introduce her would be to use the word “actress” (for the benefit of those who want to expand, here is a link to Wikipedia, where you will find words such as winner of the Maskin Award and the Theater Award), but this is an entrepreneur blessed with talents, including the talent to choose particularly successful spouses and children. In addition to all these, Lilian is also one of the funniest people I have ever met, and she is also a cook, and a wonderful host and friend and a generous woman like no other.
An example of her extraordinary generosity is her willingness to share her transition story.
Beginning:
What was the first thing that made you think something was changing here?
mood. Already at the age of 38, I felt that something was changing. I didn’t know how to define it or explain it but I felt something was happening. As if a slow farewell had begun from everything that felt young and fresh to me. For two years I prepared for my 40th birthday. On the morning of my birthday I opened my eyes – and I will never forget it – in front of me was my partner who looked at me from zero distance, smiling and saying – do you see? nothing happened. That was the thing I needed to hear the most.
With the age of 40 came so many good things – motherhood of a second child, creating our new family unit after I became a widow, great roles, using the experience I gained to create independent projects on stage for the first time, good new friendships, brave partnerships, strong family, and that’s how it somehow slipped by me This passage in the throat easily.
By the age of 50, I was already serious and careful, I knew it would no longer slide down my throat even with castor oil, I was preparing for a dramatic farewell. On the one hand, and the devil knows how it happened, among my female friends the topic of age and the threatening transition to it passed easily, or more precisely in silence and detachment from reality, almost without a word or conversation and every other topic immediately took a much more central and significant place.
We didn’t discuss yes or no hormones, or the fear of the physical and mental attack we were about to face, and the after part dripped slowly.
I remember that years ago, one of my son’s brothers broke up with his sweet and charming first girlfriend whom I loved very much, they were sixteen or seventeen years old. Two weeks after the breakup, she and I made an appointment for coffee. She had beautiful blue eyes and I remember her coming to the meeting and I saw a new look in her eyes that were still swollen from crying and she told me that she told her mother – why didn’t you tell me that it hurt so much?
And I thought about it that my mother didn’t tell me either. And maybe that’s a hard thing to tell your daughter when she’s not there yet.
I came unprepared.
When the symptoms started I felt an abysmal sense of loneliness without any connection to my excellent relationship. Something happened between me and myself that required me to do a deep introspection and recalculate a course.
I mainly remember three extreme situations:
> The dying of the menstrual cycle which was one of the saddest moments in my life.
> The morning of my 50th birthday when I went for an eight kilometer run, I came home and just fell on the floor crying and couldn’t stop.
> A new kind of existential abysmal sadness that I didn’t know.
In my natural choice, I give up less and cope more, but maybe sometimes I don’t delay enough so that it doesn’t hurt too much, and so up until this very moment I’m not clear how to cope and what I’m supposed to do.
Did you have any information at that point?
I had no information, I didn’t even know what to look for, I wasn’t aware that I needed to look, I didn’t even think of taking hormones, maybe because most of the symptoms I had weren’t terrible and it seems to me that it was mainly because I trusted my optimism and didn’t realize that I actually started running long distances Long ones whose route is unknown, unpredictable and above all very long.
It took me a few years to understand that the fact that I haven’t slept a single night in a row for years and the feeling that the ground is falling from under my feet, is rooted in my hormonal state or the new hormonal island.
I remember a friend called me one day terrified and told me about unending menstrual bleeding and was sure she had a terminal illness. To her delight, I already knew and was able to reassure her that she was just in the process of saying goodbye to her menstrual cycle.
Around the age of 50 my period stopped and I remember the stab in the heart when I officially realized that I would never have any more children. Long before that I gave up another child because I was waiting for some production in the theater for about two years, so although I already knew then that I would no longer have another child, the possibility was there and suddenly it is no longer and this irreversible fact made me very sad.
Where are you today in this respect? Still in transit? Already lived the thing itself?
Lived the thing itself for a long time.
What did you draw from all the symptoms?
Hot flashes, palpitations, mood swings, lack of sleep. Everything.
What is it like to mature in your profession?
In my profession it is not easy. In media interviews for a new project coming up, it was common not to make age an issue and the message passed was that it is better not to open it up. Even in the theater, when I sometimes offered to play a role that I was interested in as a character older than me, it happened that I replied that I shouldn’t be too late because in the end I would end up being cast only in roles for older women.
In other words, the message was that it is better to pretend you are younger and then maybe it will happen, or at least the reality will be hidden for a little while longer.
Reducing the amount of older or wrinkled faces on the screen as if it is a direct relation to the demographic situation, this is also a reality that has not yet changed and it contributes in my profession to the difficult feeling that starting at a certain age you are in professional danger and need to intensify the struggle to survive.
how is your pace today
I suppose my rhythm has changed compared to what it was a decade ago, but I do feel that I have strong energy and inner burning and passion and love and curiosity and great enthusiasm for new adventures.
what is your day like
Early natural awakening, short espresso in the morning. Three fast sports walks a week of 8 kilometers and weights at the end, with the aim of adding a rowing or yoga class and with very partial success.
Then I live in a changing routine most of the day – unless I have rehearsals or a meeting – I spend time in our house, which I love very much and which gives me peace and calm.
If I’m not in rehearsal I usually try to initiate a new project and work on it during the day at the same time as everything else.
I really like to eat and going to a restaurant or for a meal with a very good cook makes me happy.
And also very fond of wine, every day ends with a glass or two, if I’m in company then more. Lately I’m addicted to series that are my lullaby.
What did you learn from the women in your family about growing up and growing old?
Until last February, I lived in a family of four generations of women: my grandmother, my mother, myself and my daughter.
My beloved grandmother who passed away at the age of 104 and a half, was a smart, aware, feminine, curious, developed and renewed woman, with extraordinary energy who always liked to talk about everything and she taught me not to be afraid of life and to enjoy the moment.
She hid her age until she was 90 (funny that it used to be possible to do that).
When she turned 90, I managed to convince her to reveal her age in order to show off and enjoy the physical and mental achievements with which she reached the 90s.
From the beginning and despite the concealment, she accepted her age and the changes it would bring with it and for many years she was in psychological treatment which really helped her to stand bravely in the face of what life called her. When she grew up, she fully accepted the decline in the various functions and did not delay because of matters of external visibility. She put devices in her ears when she could no longer hear well, and walked with a cane when she was already less stable and later with a walker, etc.
In the test of choosing between harming the quality of her life and admitting to the world that she has grown up, there was no question. She is my inspiration model.
One tip that you picked up from them or that you learned yourself that could improve the lives of all of us?
There is the sentence that Or Israeli wrote to me at the end of the show “Insolence that you will not train”:
If life throws you off, learn to fly.
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By the way, I think there are still places for the current initiative of Lilian and Irit Byrne: Dinner with Julia. A meal (I’m sure those who come will have to learn to eat and laugh at the same time) inspired by Julia Child.
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Kind of a personal story with too much information:
Lilian’s partner, Moran Flamoni, is an architect (who designed their house) but also a Bruce Springsteen expert (they have a framed picture of him in the house). Around his fiftieth birthday he asked Lillian to agree to come with him to the concert. It was a dream of his and she decided that she would make it come true for him: “I was just sure that I would spend the three and a half hours of the show locked in a bathroom talking to girlfriends to pass the time.” What happened was that as soon as Bruce went on stage, Lillian started crying and didn’t stop until he came down .
When she told me this, I realized two things: 1. I have to go to his concert. and 2. I must not forget a tissue.
So right now I’m packing to fly to see Bruce Springsteen for the first time and the blog is going on vacation for a week.
This is Lillian’s favorite song:
With a chance to make it good somehow
?Hay, what else can we do
Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair
Well the night busting open
These two lanes will take us anywhere