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Fadzayi Maposah Correspondent

It has been cold.

The cold weather has exposed people for who they are.

There are so many people who do not want to even get a bit of the cold wind near their bodies.

Now that we are in August which is called Nyamavhuvhu in Shona because of nature of the winds that blow in all directions, these people are struggling to keep the wind at bay.

My second daughter Takudzwanashe, is one individual who dreads the cold. She will look up the sky, the moment she sees any cloud, she will get inside and put on a pair of socks.

As the cloud cover increases so do the layers of socks that she will be wearing! She will also wear a woollen hat and sweater. Up to today I am not sure why she does that.

She says she does not want to be prone to colds when she can just prevent the diseases.

When she is away and it gets cold, I think and smile knowing that wherever she is, she is well layered and warm.

I heard that it is important for one to understand his or her body strengths and weaknesses.

When one knows how the body works, stress is reduced.

I read an article which stated that as some people grow older, they become lactose intolerant.

I was concerned.

I have shared that I love yoghurt so much that when opportunity presents itself I can buy a lot and people may think I will be spoiling the little ones.

No. It will just be my yoghurt, to treat myself. Now if I am to become lactose intolerant what would I do?

While Takudzwanashe dreads the cold, I dread being stopped from eating certain foods by a medical practitioner. I always ensure I am temperate in what I consume.

I do not take too much or too little of anything. I do not want to be sitting in a doctor`s room and telling her/him that I was yet to enjoy whatever I would have been asked to stop eating. I can picture the doctor looking at me with a shocked face; so I do not want to shock anyone and be recorded among the statistics of patients who are in denial or angry when a diagnosis is shared.

So reading that with age could come lactose intolerance really affected me.

I was happy the article stated towards the end that it is possible to enjoy milk, yoghurt and margarine that is lactose free.

Soya products can be substitutes. Getting older has its complications. There are many years to look back at but there are also changes that need to be done.

I had a laugh when one man shared that he no longer likes looking at the mirror because each time that he does so, it seems that another wrinkle has been added. Now that is a man, imagine how my fellow women are behaving in this regard.

Wrinkles are not a worry for me. I believe that the wrinkles add or refine beauty. As we get older we get beautiful or handsome in different ways. Anyway these terms being handsome or beautiful are relative terms.

Remember beauty is in the eye of the beholder….

There are some sanitary products that used to work out fine for me when I was younger that seem to miss the mark these days. When I was younger and I saw these products I used to ask myself who are the people who use them. Strange is it not. One woman explained that she resorted to using maternity pads once when she was afraid that she would stain her bed linen as she slept soundly after a long day at work.

When she was in the supermarket waiting to pay for the product, a fellow customer asked her if she knew she had taken maternity pads or she had done that by mistake.

She smiled and replied calmly that she knew she had taken sanitary pads from the shelf. Her strength was in being polite to the woman, understanding that she knew why she wanted the pads and did not have to explain why.

She also knew her weakness that she could sleep through the night and wake up with soiled bed linen.

Strange how sleeping through the night can in some situations be a weakness. Some would give a lot just to sleep through the night.

Others wake up to change their sanitary ware.

Others opt to change their sanitary ware just before sleeping.

I have also realised that people dread different issues regarding menstruation. While some people dread staining their clothes because of heavy menstrual flow, others dread having painful periods.

The ones who dread painful periods have heard different stories of how women wrestled with pain every menstrual cycle.

One woman said she is not happy with her menstrual flow. According to her it is light. This she told me after she had read the back of my jacket which had messages on menstrual health management.

She longs for a heavy period, even just one period. I looked at her in amazement as she told me this.

All I could tell her was get medical attention and then just make the best of the situation. We seem to long for what we do not have.

The grass always seems greener on the other side. Also our minds are full of the myths and misconceptions that we have heard.

These myths shock us and contribute to the fears and what we dread that we carry with us. Make the best of the situation.