Part of being a woman is living with the realization that your body will betray you. When you least expect it.
Walking down the street, feeling super hot and sexy in something light colored? Yeah, you have a blood stain on your ass and everyone sees it. No, they aren't going to tell you. You will find out when you get home tonight.
Feeling confident in the knowledge that you have chosen the right path, that you aren't that in to kids and even if you were now is not the time? Estrogen doesn't know that, and will flood your body with poisonous hormones that make you coo at hipster infant clothes in target.
Total proud of a successful weekend that sets you up for success personally and professionally? Here comes crippling loneliness and depression, because as a woman in your thirties your PMS now includes a drop in serotonin that induces clinical depression!
Or, in my personal case, I spent last night bragging about my ability to process wine due to a family history of alcoholism and a highly evolved liver, then wake up to find that not only did impending menstruation inhibit my body's ability to process toxins, but the flu-like symptoms of aches, fever, and nausea, combined with both diarrhea and a feeling of constipation are not sudden onset of Ebola as I first suspected, but just my period. Making me feel like shit. Again.
Rather than spend $10.19 +tax on airport advil, I opted to spend the same amount of money on an airport beer. Because that was the obvious adult decision, giving me both pain relief and an improved sense of self, necessary now that I realize that I might also be bloated and gassy. Sorry, fellow air travelers, but this is happening. Right now.
I neglected to realize that the betrayal wasn't over, because with beer came the inevitable questioning of all of my life choices, ever, and the deep desire to call my ex. Oh, silly estrogen, silly, seratonin. Silly uterine lining shedding that fucks up an entire day.
As much as I believe and know that woman can do anything, I often feel like werewolfing myself the day my period starts. It has become a day of physical and emotional pain that seems to beg for a break for society, rather than the powering through of my youth. I don't have as much to prove, maybe, or maybe I just think I am due a day off from life more often now. But, as much as it is possible for any and every woman to power through the worst day of the monthly torture that is part and parcel of being a biological woman for the sake of the perpetuation of the species, don't we deserve a few more days off?
I feel like I do. Damn his for happening 5 hours before i am scheduled to eat and do laundry, when I could ease into a hot shower, elastic waist-band pants, and some raw cookie dough and cheap white wine with frozen fruit in it.
