Peri-menopause is a weird place to be.
For me, the strangest part or maybe most unexpected part of the whole thing is how gradual it is. My mother never speaks about things like this, so I didn't really know what to expect, other than knowing the anatomy and physiology and the clinical things. Most people who come to this site are here to hear from someone who has experienced what they have, even if they understand clinically what is going on. I'm no exception.
Hot flashes? That sounds so dramatic and obvious. But they aren't, at least not for me. I have some activity that should maybe warm me up a bit and I just keep getting warmer and warmer until I want to go lie in the snow. There is no flash. It's more like a slow creep directly into an oven.
Since my endometrial ablation, I haven't had to worry about the crazy irregular periods that go on as long as the time between them. I think I skipped my first one this year. Again, it's so gradual. It isn't like just turning off the faucet. They become a little less predictable, a little more, a little less, and then you think, "Huh? Did I have a period this month?" I don't always remember to write them down.
I keep a fan pointed at the bed. I don't wake up drenched in sweat yet, but I get too hot to sleep. The fan helps. Peri-menopause for me so far is weird little things that I know must be leading up to bigger things. So far I'm still surprised when I'm the only person in the room sweating. Every time.