Bending, Shattering, and Becoming: Welcome to the BambooM-ing Grove
Why I am building a hidden sanctuary to write about my journey through infertility, failed adoption, midlife, menopause, and the terrains we cross in the dark.
There is a precise moment when the bamboo stalk must make a choice.
When the winds of life shift violently, it cannot remain completely rigid. If it refuses to move, it shatters. Instead, it does something miraculous: it bows. It bends. It leans deep into the dirt, weathering the storm in absolute silence, only to snap back toward the sky when the air clears—stronger, hollower, and more resilient than before.
Welcome to BambooM-ing.
If you have found your way here, chances are you are navigating a shitstorm of your own. Perhaps you are standing on the precipice of midlife, or newly crossed over to the other side of 50 (like me). Perhaps your body is shifting under the new weight of menopause (pun intended), or your mind is wrestling with the tumultuous waves of mental health.
You are not alone. This space is a sanctuary built for the process of becoMing.
The Woman Behind the Words
To understand why this space exists, you need to know a little bit about me.
Up until a couple of years ago, I operated in a highly structured, visible professional world in the Greater Toronto Area (Canada). To save myself, I had to step away from a toxic environment that bent and nearly broke me. I had to refocus my energies on healing, learning to take better care of myself, regrouping, and taking exploratory footsteps in new directions. I am an educational leader, strategist, and researcher; with an insatiable interest in the innovation of teaching and learning within our digital context. In that world, public identity is everything.
But beneath that professional armour, I am a woman who has grown up during second- and third-wave feminism, navigating the best I can through our current fourth wave.
I have walked through the fire of major life passages in a pluralistic Western society, carrying a complex web of intersectionalities and identities—I am:
she/her, cis-gendered
a second-generation Chinese-Canadian, thus a member of the overseas Chinese Diaspora and all the cultural baggage that carries
often considered a “bamboo shoot” (竹昇 zhú shēng / jook sing) by Homeland Chinese and first gen emigrants—closed at both ends like a section of bamboo—not Chinese enough (perceived language/mindset inadequacy) nor Western enough (not White therefore a Perpetual Foreigner)
an only child
wife to my soulmate and best friend
caregiver to my loving elderly parents
childlesschildFREEa dog mom
auntie to several nieces and nephews
auntie-mentor to several children and youth in my life
godmother to 3 godsons and 1 chow chow
mercurial and loving friend to an increasingly select bunch of beautiful souls—a necessary adaptation to my dwindling social energy and increasing BS intolerance
bilingual (English + my heritage Chinese dialect)
neurodivergent—diagnosed “gifted” at the age of 10 (latter part of 4th grade) by school district psychoeducational testing; I’m also time-blind
an educator at heart and an accidental researcher by circumstance
the first member of my father’s family to ever attend university
the first member of my mother’s family to attain a PhD
the first member of my family to present my research at international research conferences across the globe over the years
a conflicted cradle Catholic
a Nature appreciator and beginner bird watcher
an active hobby dim-sum-er
Like many other Cross-Cultural Kids, I navigate these intersectionalities between a culture I’ve inherited and a culture that I live in. I have been dancing the identity code-switching dance all my life–linguistically, culturally, professionally—and I still stumble sometimes.
I am also the heiress of intergenerational trauma. My family and ancestors on both sides carry the experiential weight of the Chinese Communist Revolution (1927–1949), Japanese invasion of China (1931-1945), the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949 Nationalist Kuomintang government vs. Chinese Communist Party), and the Chinese Exclusion Act of Canada (1923-1947). The latter greatly impacted my great-grandfather, a well-respected man in Toronto’s early Chinatown, known for his generous nature and willingness to help others in the community.
In the early 1900s, China was politically unstable and people were starving. Great-grandfather managed to convince an aunt to sell some of her farmland so that he could afford passage to Canada. The fate of his entire clan rested solely on his shoulders. He started out eking a difficult existence in Toronto, eventually co-founding the city’s very first Chinese grocery store (on Elizabeth Street) that provided Chinese produce all year round, thanks to his greenhouse farming (or so it is remembered in family lore). All the while, he sent his earnings back home to China because Canadian law legally forbade him from bringing his young family to join him.
For the love of his homeland and a deep sense of patriotism—no doubt amplified by the three decades of systemic rejection he experienced while living in Canada—he sold what Canadian assets he had and returned to China during the Chinese Civil War with hopes of helping to build a stronger country. Only to have all of his hard-earned money confiscated by the Chinese Communist Party. The sacrifice and hardships of three generations through three decades, gone in a violent instant.
I know what it feels like to navigate the chaotic emotional rollercoaster of infertility and subfertility, as well as the heavy guilt and shame that attach themselves to your innermost soul like unrelenting parasitic barnacles. I am currently in the midst of the profound WTF-ness of watching my body change, newly post-menopause—rewriting the rules of my energy, my mood, and my sense of Self. I know the heavy, unspoken weight of managing precarious mental health while carrying on as positively and solidly as best I can in the outside world—so as not to worry or burden others.
To balance the heavy, I invite as much play into my life as I can manage. I’m playing with music on the piano and drums, enjoying the lyrical process, and all the embodied mashing and bashing. I’m playing with all kinds of visual art mediums, a new pathway for my self-expression, and a remedy for blank walls in my home. I’m playing with crochet, which I find deeply relaxing and meditative, while upping my gifting game. I’m playing pickleball—a recent injury-inducing compulsion. I’m playing with Latin and swing dancing—an additional way for my husband and me to connect and layer the laughs! I’m playing with the idea of quitting snowboarding each of these past few winters, only to put it off for another year as I prove to myself that “I’m not ‘too old’ for this…YET.” I’m playing in the water—paddling with my husband, friends, and my dog, on SUPs and kayaks—finding serenity in connecting with the land and water, in deep gratitude. I’m playing occasional equestrian—taking an extended break after a concussion from a botched horse jump, and limiting myself to trail rides. I’m playing martial artist—practicing Tai Chi with my father for the past 20 years, and briefly dabbling in Wing Chun. I’m playing with words in the children’s storytelling space. And I’m playing with ideas about a possible entrepreneurial adventure in educational consulting.
I am a human being who needs a place to lay down the professional armour and speak my unapologetic truth as I work out what it means to me, to be a capital-W Woman in this time of my life, in the space that I occupy—socially, temporally, geographically, physically, metacognitively, emotionally, spiritually.
Why I Am Writing Anonymously
You will know me here simply as JiaHui (pronounced “Jee-ah Hway”).
It is the Mandarin pinyin of my Chinese name 家慧 meaning Family Wisdom, given to me at birth by my father. It doesn’t exist in any of my official English documentation. Nobody calls me by my Chinese name except my family in our home dialect.
I have deliberately chosen to step behind a pen name and write anonymously, not out of fear, but out of a profound need for freedom.
By stepping into the identity of JiaHui, I am removing the mask of the external professional to reveal something much more authentic—the bloody guts and starry whims of ME.
Anonymity is my shield, but it is also your mirror. By keeping my everyday identity hidden, this publication ceases to be about me as an individual. It becomes about us. It allows me to write with raw honesty and radical acceptance about the things generations upon generations of women have been explicitly told to suffer through in silence, until the 2021ish dawn of the current “Menopause Gold Rush” when menopause FINALLY started entering mainstream conversation.
Navigating the Menopause Gold Rush
Speaking of the “Menopause Gold Rush”—this weird cultural intersection we are at now, where overdue empowerment meets hyper-commercial capitalism—I would like to express my deep gratitude to the following Un-Muted Mpowering Menopause Mavens:
Dr. Jen Gunter, Dr. Mary Claire Haver, and Dr. Karen Tang (all OB/GYNs), who are giving women the medical vocabulary and the confidence to stop being dismissed by doctors.
Dr. Jen Gunter for her 2021 silence-shattering BS-busting book The Menopause Manifesto—a must-read/listen for EVERYONE, even if you weren’t born with ovaries—if only to understand the bodily lived experience of loved ones in your household—mother, sister, wife, daughter—and the other 50% of the global population (including some of your colleagues). At the very least, listen to her 2022 TED talk. Her podcasts, blog, social media info, and more can be found here: https://drjengunter.wordpress.com, TikTok, Instagram.
Dr. Mary Claire Haver, MD for ushering a social media tsunami of digestible shame-free videos breaking down perimenopause symptoms (like visceral belly fat and brain fog) on TikTok and Instagram, and her 2024 book The New Menopause. Check out her website for a goldmine of health resources, podcast, social media info, etc.: https://thepauselife.com.
GynoMight with Karen Tang, MD for being a trailblazing OB/GYN and surgeon who uses her massive social media presence to bust taboos around endometriosis, adenomyosis, fibroids, chronic pelvic pain, menopause, gender affirming gynecologic care, and the intersection of racism and healthcare. Her superpower is breaking down medically and emotionally complex topics with dynamic entertaining clarity. Her 2024 book It's Not Hysteria: Everything You Need to Know About Your Reproductive Health (but Were Never Told) is a vital, inclusive, and empowering guide to gynecologic health. You can access her resources and follow her advocacy on TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, and her website: https://drkarentang.com.
Oprah, Halle Berry, Davina McCall, and Michelle Obama for using their MASSIVE cultural capital to pull perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause out of the taboo and medical dark ages, dropping it squarely into mainstream pop culture and politics.
The Purpose of BambooM-ing
This Substack is not a self-help manual or a clinical guide, and I am NOT a health care professional. It is a literary sanctuary—a “hidden bridge” connecting the analytical world we have to live in with the deeply emotional, spiritual, and physical realities of being a woman in midlife—and maybe beyond (who knows how long I can keep this thing going? *eyeroll+snort*).
Moving forward, you can expect essays, reflections, and deep dives into:
Bearing the Childbearing Years: Navigating the shifting tides of menstruation, fertility, and the heavy expectations of the childbearing years.
The Peri-to-Post-Menopause Transition: Navigating the physical and emotional shifts without losing our minds or our identities.
Mental Health in the Middle: Speaking openly about anxiety, depression, burnout, and the psychological restructuring of midlife.
Resilience (The “M-ing” Process): Creative and philosophical musings on how we bend without breaking, shatter our old expectations, and grow roots that run deeper than before.
This is a space to breathe. A space to reflect. A hidden BambooM-ing grove where we can sit together in the shade, drop our titles at the gate, and talk about what it actually means to survive and thrive through life’s deepest valleys.
Thank you for stepping across the bridge with me.
With warmth, resilience, and joy,
JiaHui 家慧
A Note to My Early Readers: If this first reflection resonated with you, please consider subscribing to receive future essays directly in your inbox. Let’s cultivate this grove together.