A perfect storm of arrogance, insecurity, compassion and humor, I often go too far, am too nice, too cocky, or pay too much attention, to everything. It never goes well when I reach that point, the run screaming from the room point, which I once believed to be only a metaphor.

I first suspected menopause crazy was real at a neighbor’s party. My husband and I walked in, said a brief hello to a couple of nice women on the left, then stepped onto the huge deck filled with people. A few turned towards us. A jumble of phrases, like defensive weapons, popped into my head with an urgency that was unsettling, a catalogue of work and family history, accomplishments, current topical themes.

“Oh.” I said, possibly aloud, “No.”

Then I spun around, walked back through the house and straight home.**

That was not happening.

What was happening? I was the one who could befriend anyone and get out of (almost) anything. This was not the level of social adeptness to which I was accustomed. Hormones, or the lack thereof, were obstructing the flow of received knowledge from my ancestors. I begged off on our annual beach trip last year due to the disruption in service.

Lately, there seems increasingly less space between what are fast becoming my most common public settings: Hi! Great to see you, LMTFA and RSFTR* (run screaming from the room).

This is a problem, especially when coupled with the fact that the expectations for a woman from South Mississippi and the bridge of the Louisiana boot could not be more clear. I have worked assiduously to avoid successfully achieving said expectations for decades, having run screaming from that particular area of the country at the earliest plausible opportunity. The weight of all of that Mississippi make-up alone could have held me there.

New Orleans and my friends there, I miss like a lost limb. South Louisiana is different.

I have yet to label menopause as an official crisis because I still do the things adults do. I hold down a job and convince others that I’m responsible and effective at said job. I wear earrings, passable outfits and clean, if little old manly, shoes at least partly because a disguise has many benefits.

There are almost certainly, if increasingly rare, moments of complete brilliance which, I hope, leave any adults in the room, with enough temporary blindness that I can, within reason, do what I want for the bulk of my time here.

There is more than one edge to this amazing ability, however.

Let me start by saying that, somewhere in Cork, Ireland, my grandfather, Timothy, had his first drink a little over a hundred years ago. By all accounts, he was a truly nice man. Charming, even. Everyone loved him.

We have a letter he sent to my father and uncle on their naval destroyer on St. Patrick’s Day somewhere in the Pacific during World War II. In looping letters from a fountain pen filled with bright green ink, he assured them that they would be home soon, as no one on the other side of the globe was a match for the two Desmond boys.

He came over from Ireland as an adult, married to a brilliant red-headed doctor. They were undoubtedly full of hope that, in America, the world would be new and their dreams, etc. This first marriage produced some truly wonderful children but it did not last. Part of the problem may have been that he was charming.

He was also an alcoholic, but that was nothing the family hadn’t seen, fore and aft. That was a straightforward catastrophe with which women, first, and then children learn to deal. There have been songs about it for longer than people have been able to read. Perhaps this is why so many old folk songs tell such tragic tales. The undercurrent of woe is too real to ignore.

On the one hand, around heated tempers or social awkwardness, charm can be a welcome stopgap. A few disarming words and faith or friendship is restored. Any unpleasantness is forgotten for the moment.

It’s the other edge that’s the problem. It can hide some not very nice things.

In my family, the gift was generally only allowed out for a good run with the admixture of external spirits. Short runs are possible sober. I, for instance, can, if I choose, charm the pants off of someone for 5 minutes, after which time I will often remember an appointment, hear a bell, or toss some other amateur theatrical in the air which will allow me to walk quietly rather than RSFTR.

Lately, I seem to have lost this knack. The fact that my children are grown doesn’t help. Telling people that I urgently need to get home because my dogs are lonely is somehow less convincing than “I need to pick my son up.”

When I was 19, having a big time in the city of my choice, I enjoyed alcohol immensely but didn’t have a drinking problem, unless knocking back a couple, for courage, before going out was a drinking problem.

Since he was also not a fan of society sober, I wonder if this wasn’t the same way my dad started drinking. Alcohol does solve the problem admirably, but only in the short term.

Charm coupled with social anxiety sounds like the premise of an excruciating comedy. Wait. It is an excruciating comedy.

At one point, so the family story goes, a doctor actually prescribed vodka instead of my dad’s usual gin, as it was less liable to result in anger. It must have struck someone else as odd because, much later, I remember seeing a copy of the prescription. First, do little or nothing to alleviate harm — because, colloquial speech being what it is, who knows what Hippocrates actually said?

I’m not sure who in the house was choosing the movies for preschoolers, but, when I was about five, I fell in love with the Jimmy Stewart movie, “Harvey.” The whole story seemed to be about the calm, friendly Stewart drinking in a comfortable neighborhood bar. He befriends a pookah named Harvey. A pookah is a six-foot tall invisible rabbit. I didn’t know it was possible to be happy and drunk at the same time and became fixated on the idea of this gentle, standing bunny and of the nice man who was his friend.

The stuffed bunny I received on a subsequent Easter immediately became ‘Harvey.’ The last time I saw him, his fluff was matted and more grey than white but, if you looked inside the fold of one of his long ears it was as pink and soft as ever. I’m not sure if the critics thought of the film as a tear-jerker, but it always makes me cry.

My grandfather was a handsome man in his own right and, in photos, he actually looks a bit like Stewart. He held good jobs down and was not a bad man. I believe he was a happy drunk. I would never call an angry drunk charming. The anger is too real to ignore.

I’ve been virtually teetotal since my first son was evident three decades ago. There were just too many Parenting the Vaudeville Way old movies running in my head to risk it. What I remember most is being on a state of high alert. I could tell in a millisecond when either parent turned from reasonable to not.

The funny thing about children of alcoholics is that, as a coping mechanism, they often suppress a lot of memories. My best friend from that time tells stories that, until the words come out of her mouth, I realize I haven’t thought of for decades or I believed they were a dream. As soon as she begins, I remember viscerally, almost with a start. It reminds me of scenes in movies in which someone is violently brought back to life with an adrenalin syringe. They never look happy.

Once, at about 8 years old, I had a fever at school. I fell asleep on a cot in the infirmary while someone called my mother. I remember waking up and the school was dark and empty. I kept my hand on the wall all the way down the long windowless hall to the principal’s office where there was a window and a phone. The reproduction of the famous Gilbert Stuart picture of George Washington over the entryway sofa looked menacing in the dark. We all knew it had broken the nice first grade teacher, Ms. Shelton’s nose.

I dialed. 345–2859. It was after six. My friend remembered this because her mother was livid. Mine had not noticed I wasn’t in the house.

Of course, even without alcohol, I’ve poured a cup of hot tea on my eldest in the bathtub and watched the car holding both of my beloved sons roll to the very edge of busy US 25 before racing back to pull the parking brake, among other foolish things.

I always said I was sorry. I don’t remember that being a feature of my own childhood, but it seemed to happen all the time when my children were still at home. I have said this before, but wouldn’t it be funny if such a simple thing turned out to be one of the most important things a parent can do? Apologizing and listening instead of talking could be the key to many ills.

Oddly, it still feels as if I’ve let down the Desmond side because I rarely finish more than half a glass of wine. Part of me wants to just hole up somewhere nice and flat, because I have ankles, and line up the G&Ts. But it’s not time travel, now, is it?

The whole notion of a bender pales when balanced on top of the piles of bottles figuratively covering my family. It took such a long time to see at all clearly through so many angles of refraction, I think I’ll be tackling this new stage of life relatively sober.

Actually, this particular age in the seven great ages of my life as an epic heroine has not been an unadulterated bummer. Like any trip to an alien place, it’s left me with a bit of perspective and a few choice aphorisms spread about the rooms of my mind, on occasional tables like evocatively scented philosophical potpourri.

Whenever I bump into one, it reminds me of my travels and renews my resolve, finally, to:

not waste time with people who are unkind.
say yes only if I want to.
and, most importantly,
slow down and enjoy whatever wholly subjective
version of the world I share with my favorite people and dogs.

* I support this abbreviation being entered into the texting canon. It’s filled with pathos and I, for one, find it increasingly useful. How many of these little things come equipped with implied action and backstory?

** That my husband followed me out of that party without a word is a blessing indeed.