menopausal butterfly?

I seem to be more aggressive, or less tolerant, recently and its a situation that has developed slowly and evenly, not one that can be brushed away as a bad mood or a bad month. Now I am far enough along the learning curve to look back and see, it seems to have crept up on me progressively.

Even with real stresses, fears, possibilities, I have handled worse news differently in the past, so whilst these things are showing up examples of my reduced submissiveness and new need for action, they are not the root cause of it.

Is it mortality? Doubtful, I have already looked that in the eye.
Is it the slow decrease of oestrogen - therefore the surfacing of the effects of my natural testosterone? This is the most likely cause and a great comfort, my reason being this:

With or without menstrual hormones, I will never produce as much testosterone as the weakest most feminine male. This new aggression, this new desire to go from A to B and be annoyed by obstacles in between, rather than attentive to them or interested in them, will only ever be a productive, female-controlled shadow of the attitude the men in my life have displayed ever since their balls dropped.

Regardless of what my fading milch-cow side says, regardless of what my partner would like me to believe, I am not turning into a short tempered harridan, I am simply, finally, being taken out of the 'nurturing cycle' and given just enough cards to join the game that men have played all their lives. Time my nearest and dearest got a small return on their own vision of the world, time at last for something akin to a partnership, I am waking up.

I think I am in the training ground for becoming a matriarch. Have you ever noticed how, as old men get milder, its the women that rule the roost, that get the respect, that the family turns to? There is a saying at Eton, I am told, school for the elite, that in order to lead you must first learn to serve; thats their reason for the fagging system. I suddenly get the feeling that being female, moreso in a bad situations at times, has been the best training ground for moving on to lead, one that precious few men will come near to experiencing .

I have often seen things wrong in my life and gone on through the pain to guilt, to a need to forgive and keep hoping, to make allowances, put up with it 'because'. I begin to see that not as 'me', but as a hormonal by-product similar to the one, after childbirth, where you can sleep through a bomb going off but wake instantly if the newborn's breathing changes. It wasnt my character, it was chemicals, given for a season and a reason. Time to get back to the real me.

I dont know if I'll lose that completely, because I dont know who I am, but I am remembering. It is strange that I cant feel so apologetic any more. I think I am going to have fun.