So many of you are asking questions, good questions, about what Hot Flash Diaries is. We realized that you’re not in our heads and so a good explanation is necessary for you to all see our vision. So here goes. Hot Flash Diaries, a user manual, if you will….

What’s the goal?

Once we entered our 40s, it became evident pretty quickly that this is a whole new chapter. In every way. Our bodies are changing, our minds are changing and our lives are changing. We’ve spent the past 20 years building our own worlds with boundless energy and hope. Then, we hit our 40s and things slow down a little. Our bodies start to slow down a lot. What used to work without any thought or effort from us, now takes a lot of thought and effort. We need to exercise. We need to eat right. We need to sleep right. Forget alcohol, our days of partying all night and being fresh as a daisy in the morning are long behind us. Our hormones are all out of whack, which changes everything about us, inside and out. Our kids, if we have them, are growing up. Our parents are aging, ailing and passing away. Our relationships are changing, whether that be marriages, friendships, or familial. We’re letting go of patterns that no longer serve us. We’re becoming more comfortable in our own skins, minds and hearts and therefore are a lot more honest with ourselves and everyone around us. That last one is a good one, and helps balance all the others. Here’s the not so funny part though, while we’re over here going through all of this, there is hardly any support or information or community for women in their 40s, 50s, 60, 70s, 80s and beyond. We’re the pillars who are literally holding the social fabric together. We are the strength in our society on every level. We are the keepers of everyone’s secrets and everyone’s feelings and everyone’s well being and everyone’s things (so many things). We carry these loads day in and day out. And we’re expected to do that silently and with a smile on our faces, because if we crumble, the whole damn house comes down. Sound familiar? It’s exhausting, stressful and lonely. Of course there is a great amount of joy to be found, but only when we have the support that we need to see it. Who holds us up? Who takes care of us? Who throws us a lifeline when we’re drowning? We can tell you who….EACH OTHER. Women have always bonded together to help each other through all of life’s stages. For as long as women have walked the earth, we have known that other women are our strength. We form solid relationships that carry us through the good times and bad, the happy and sad and the everything in between. That’s what Hot Flash Diaries is here to do in this new age of virtual quilting circles. We are building a community of support, strength, humor and love for our fellow women in the trenches. Through shared experience and communication, we aim to lighten the loads for all of us. To give each of us a little respite in each day. A place to go and feel seen and heard. A place to celebrate, a place to vent, a place to break down and cry. We have lofty plans for the growth of this venture and we look forward to getting to know all of you. We will not be another social media platform. That’s not what this is for. We all feel the weight of frustration from all of that noise every day. We want you to come to us with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and find a laugh or a hug or some good, relevant information. We want to support each other through this minefield we’ve created for ourselves so that we can all be at peace, and hopefully find our joy, together.

What are we talking about? Is it all hormone talk?

As the name suggests, hormones are definitely a big topic here. How can they not be? They are putting us all through the wringer and there is scarily little good information out there. Even many doctors, whose specialization is women’s health, tend to ignore our concerns, or even worse, dismiss them. We know how we feel. We know our bodies are changing. This is not a new phenomenon. Yet, in our patriarchal society, it’s deemed less important. How ridiculous is that? We are half the population, but we are programmed to believe that it doesn’t matter. That we just need to eat our yams and shut up about it, lest we make everyone uncomfortable. Screw that! We need to talk about it. We need to share our experiences. We need to help each other finds tips and strategies, vitamins and stress releasers that work for us and with our changing bodies. So yes, we want to hear all of your stories. The good, the bad, the ugly and the mortifying. By sharing our stories, we can keep each other sane and moving forward in a healthy way.

But is it ALL hormone talk?

NO!!! NO WAY!! As we all know too well, our changing body chemicals are a mere sidebar to endure while we’re busy trying to keep our heads above water in this crazy time of our lives! All the things that consumed us in our 20s and 30s are now shifting. Responsibilities are growing and we’re also supposed to start finding time to think about ourselves. Remember that young woman you used to be? Where did she go? Is she ok? If we had children, they are growing up, becoming adults, not needing us for every single thing anymore and that’s a huge shift. If we didn’t have children, there are myriads of reasons for that and now we’re left feeling all sorts of ways about that, even if we never wanted them when we were young, something about knowing that option is off the table now, tends to open a new can of worms, for better or for worse. Maybe we’re in long marriages, for better or worse. Maybe we never married. Maybe we’re divorced, for better or worse. Maybe we’re widowed. Our parents are aging, ailing and leaving us for the great beyond. We are their caregivers now. That’s a load that can be unbearably heartbreaking to carry at times. Maybe we’ve got long standing, fulfilling careers. Maybe we’ve grown to hate our chosen path and need a change, but finding the energy for that is daunting. Maybe we’re questioning every decision that led us to this point in our lives. We’re dealing with health issues that go beyond the hormones, we’re dealing with loss. We’re struggling to find our footing. There is no topic large or small, funny or sad, that we won’t talk about. Through your Diary entries, it will come out in the wash and we will all bear witness to each other’s lives and offer each other our strength and encouragement. Together we are stronger. Together we can take this life by the tits and show it who’s boss.

Why “Dear Diary”?

Many of us kept diaries when we were young. Many of us still do, only now we’ve graduated to “journals”. Same idea, different name. These letters to ourselves are informal places to lay down our deepest, most honest thoughts and get them out of the hamster wheels in our minds. Writing to the Diary lends itself to an openness and an informality that allows us to really say how we feel and what we’re thinking. We’re not writing for anyone but ourselves. There is no agenda, oh how we hate agendas. Writing to the Diary gives us a sense of peace and comfort and breaks down the walls we’ve all spent the past decades building up around ourselves. That’s what we want you to do. We want you to tell it like it is from your own perspective, as if no one else will see it. We want you to put it out there and give yourself grace and peace and let your fellow sisters soothe you. We want you to grab your phone at 1am when you just can’t get the thoughts to stop spinning, and Dear Diary the heck out of it, then let it go and get that good night’s sleep your not so young body desperately needs. Dear Diary is a form of self love and therapy and the fact that here, you can find support and love, while also helping others feel less alone when they see that you are also going through a similar experience is extremely powerful. Don’t overthink it. That’s not what this is for. We don’t want polished, we don’t want phony. No one needs any more of that. We need real, honest and raw to move forward and find some sanity in this insane world. Funny is good, silly is good, heart wrenching is good, random rambling is good. IT’S ALL GOOD. There is no wrong way to do it, unless its mean or judgey, that would be wrong, but we wouldn’t publish that anyway, so don’t bother.

How do I use it?

It’s pretty simple really, and that is by design. We don’t need any more platforms to muddle through and figure out how to use, right? When you go to www.HotFlashDiaries.com you will see 3 categories at the top of the page.

“Read Todays” is the home page and will have the new daily Diary entry right there, just scroll down to read. In the beginning we will be posting one new entry a day. As we grow, and we know we will, we may have to post a few a day, but the newest will always be right there. You can read it without logging in, but if you want to comment on it, you will need to login to the site (more on that in a bit).

“Write Yours” will take you to the page to submit your own entry for publication. Again, in order to post, you will need to login/register with the site. In order for us to keep the trolls and creeps out we must have you register with a verifiable email address and real name. We know there are ways to still hide identities, but we will also be approving all submissions before posting them. There will be no creepy, scary, disturbing or nasty content on HFD. That we can promise you. And again, you can choose to keep your anonymity in posting even when you’re logged in (keep reading, we’ll explain). We’d also love for you to add a picture of your own taking.

“Read Them All” will take you to the categorized groups of all the past diary entries. We will sort them by topic so you can choose to stick to one area if you wish or you can spend some time browsing what interests you. In the beginning these groups will be small, but as more and more of you submit Diary entries, these lists will grow over time and become a wealth of knowledge and shared hearts.

Is my Diary entry really anonymous, if I want it to be?

Yes! How you sign your Diary entry in your submission, is how it will show on the website. Even though you will have to login in with your real credentials, we will not use your name or email address on your Diary entry, ever. Only what you write in the submission will be public. Believe me when I say we will not be looking to see who wrote what, either. Ain’t nobody got time for that! You can choose to sign your real name, you can sign it “anonymous” or you can have some fun and make up a nom de plume (I just love saying that). It’s entirely up to you. For this to work there needs to be a level of trust and anonymity sometimes. We all have stories that we wouldn’t want people to attach to us for a myriad of reasons from keeping other’s privacy to keeping our own and we respect that. We also know that those are usually the stories that need telling the most. So unless you write something that’s going to get our databases subpoenaed, your secrets are safe with us.

Can my comments be anonymous?

Well, that’s a no. If you’re going to comment on someone else’s Diary, you are going to have to do that publicly, under your account registered identity. Out of respect for the poster. We will only allow for respectful discourse. We don’t always have to agree, but we need to disagree respectfully and gently. These Diaries are from a place of vulnerability. We respect that and we expect everyone else to as well.

Are you going to annoy the crap out of me with emails and advertisements?

NO! You can sign up to have the link to the daily entries sent to your inbox or text messages (eventually), but you don’t have to. We will never send you unsolicited emails. We will always ask first because we HATE unsolicited emails and texts.

I think that about covers it. We have a long road ahead of building something we can all be proud to be a part of, but we know it’s worth it. Be patient with us while we learn, grow and evolve. Know that we are coming to you from a place of support, love and friendship and we hope you will do the same. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email us at contactus@hotflashdiaries.com .

Welcome to the community. We are so happy that you are here.

With love and friendship,

Kerri and Meg