The extraordinary thing about the period
There’s something absolutely extraordinary about the body which is just about to spurt blood all over your jetti. Not extraordinarily good. Just extraordinary.
It warns you with absolutely shitty back aches, a small yet thumping drum in the uterus and pain in the breasts- oh, sore, disgusting pain, that hurts even when you accidentally brush past it while chopping onions.
You’re bloated, you want a cheese sandwich but want to gag after you’ve eaten it whole, less than three minutes after it’s off the tawa. Your thighs feel bigger than they’ve ever been. Your hands look ugly and your double chin feels enormous when you’re resting it on your chest. You want to try on a new dress just to tell yourself that you look terrible and that you should do nothing but hide in your room. Let’s not get started on the face breakouts.
There’s something absolutely extraordinary about the body which is just about to usher the period in, because it messes so deeply with your mind.
Before it starts, I feel like the women we watch on TV shows like Killing Eve- easily capable of murder. Easily capable of so much sadness and derangement. Easily capable of mad, horrifying laughter and insecurities.
There’s something that is making me feel uncomfortable and dirty at my very core and I have no choice but to act completely fine, edit copies, cook, clean, crack jokes and smile.
Three days before it arrives, I warn everyone. “I think I’m going to get my period soon. It’s happening. For sure. I just know it”. It’s a warning to them and me because I have to tell myself that it’s only a period.
It’s only three days of the walls breaking and tearing and then slowly but surely fixing itself. It’s only three days of cramps and dry skin or overly oily skin and the nauseating smell of blood that sometimes comes from your sweat. It’s only three days of shoving teal menstrual cups into your body or staining your sheets. Only three days of not wanting to focus, of losing energy but wanting to go on about my day. It’s only three days where I really have no choice but to act fully and completely functional even though in many ways, I’m not.
It’s only three days and the week before that and the sudden ovulation cycle when there is sudden stabbing pain. Okay, that’s some 15 days. It’s all good. It’s okay. It’s just 15 days. It’s just 15 days.
It’s just 15 days even if it keeps me constantly guessing and wondering if something is really wrong of if it’s just my period brain. I’m tired, I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to read Instagram posts of people telling us that the period pain is just part of the experience and that I should, embrace it. I don’t want to see witchcraft rituals that celebrate menstrual blood. I don’t want to see illustrations of glitter or flowers out of sanitary pads. Yuck. Please stop.
The absolutely extraordinary thing about the body which is about the spurt blood all over the jetti right before the period is that it’s boring as fuck. I do not want to be told otherwise.
