Living it, not lecturing about it

I'm 44 and a half, and right now, I'm in the middle of perimenopause. Not researching it from the outside. Living it — the fatigue that a nap doesn't fix, the brain fog mid-sentence, the nights I'm wide awake at 3 AM for no reason I can point to. This site started because I couldn't find anyone writing about this transition from where I actually am: a small life in Portugal, built around real food, slow meals, and a lot of walking, not because I read that it was good for me, but because that's just how life works here.

I don't have a medical degree, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. What I have is a genuine, daily experience of the Mediterranean lifestyle — the market instead of the supermarket center aisles, lunch as the real meal of the day, an afternoon slowdown nobody has to justify — and a front-row seat to how much that rhythm actually affects how perimenopause feels day to day. When I write about something I personally experience — fatigue, brain fog, sleep, mood — I'll tell you it's personal. When I'm writing about something I don't personally deal with, like hot flashes, I'll tell you that too, and point you to the actual research instead of pretending I have a cure.

This isn't a Portugal travel blog, and it's not trying to convince you to move here. Portugal is simply where I happen to be living this transition, and where I learned that the habits that help — walking, slower meals, real rest — don't require a plane ticket. They're portable. My job here is to translate what I actually live into something you can use wherever you are, whether that's a walk-up apartment in Chicago or a house outside London.

• 44½ years old, currently in perimenopause — a real, present, undocumented-until-now experience
• Living the Mediterranean lifestyle daily in Portugal: food, pace, and habits, not theory
• No formal medical credentials — every article says clearly what's personal experience versus researched information