Is your midlife body betraying you? What if it’s renegotiating?

For thirty years, my body and I ran on one metric: smaller. Then perimenopause tore up the old contract and forced a new question. Not “can I shrink,” but “what do I want this body to still be able to do at 70?” This is not a before-and-after. It is a during. And the during is where the real, unglamorous, sweary stuff lives.