As I write this, today is February 14th aka Valentines Day. Everything is awash with blood red decorations and it seems so very symbolic because it is also the day that signals the end of my beginning: today is the first day of menopause for me.

For those who don’t know, menopause is stamped officially in your medical history when you have gone a full 365 days without a period.

Today is that day, and I AM THRILLED.

I look at it as the bookend to puberty: I have gone full circle from not being swamped by my body’s natural urge to procreate because I was a girl to not being swamped by my body’s natural urge to procreate because I am an old woman. Finally, I have returned to a life of intrinsic confidence and self-acceptance, the effervescent outlook possessed by bright young girls. How I have missed it.

I am 50 years old, which I hear is on the young side for menopause, but my mother and her family seem to hit it early so I was expecting it. My peri-menopause symptoms were not very pronounced, though, so I wasn’t sure. I’ve been watching my period tracking app like a hawk!

Because I believe menopause is worth celebrating.

In our culture menopause is generally not treated kindly, more as an affliction than a natural, much less positive, state of being. It is portrayed as a loss, and I’m sure many women genuinely feel a sense of loss at not being able to get pregnant anymore, but I don’t think it is for anyone a tragedy any more than being a young girl is a tragedy.

Well. Of course, in our society, being a young girl is definitely viewed as tragic, for many (false and ridiculous, but also dangerous) reasons.

I think of menopause as the re-entry to fearlessness, though. I do not live in fear of getting pregnant, I do not live in fear of my period wrecking my day/week/month, or wrecking my clothes/bed linens/sex life. I will not fear spending precious funds to buy tampons and pads and pain relievers. I will not fear being brought down by monthly cramps.

Getting old is its own challenge, of course. There is not a phase of life that isn’t messy and difficult, in some way or another. I’m already dealing with female pattern hair loss (my plan is to shave it all off on my 55th birthday!) and I’ll never, ever have the lithe, firm physique I spent my life longing for, because aging bodies don’t work that way.

What this represents, though, is a new era. Just as puberty and adolescence marked a time of emotional and physical upheaval on the way to adulthood, the long slow slide from “fertile” to “menopause” marks a massive shift in the chemicals of my body and brain. I’m not who I was five or even two years ago, in a fundamental way.

We get nostalgic and wistful about children growing up, but we don’t think that adulthood is intrinsically bad (as much as we complain about it!). It just simply is, a state of development that happens regardless of how we feel about it, for ourselves and others. Likewise, menopause is a similar transition, even though we don’t have a convenient phrase or concept for the different stages for adult beyond “young adult,” “full grown adult,” and “middle age.”

There are stages though, more pronounced for those of us who possess (or used to) a uterus. For me, menopause is the next stage in adulting. I may do it poorly, much as I have done adulting in general since I hit 25, but I certainly won’t do it the same manner. I can’t. I’ve changed in a way that reaches down to my roots.

I’m excited about that. I want to see how glorious I can be.