Just Stay Away From Me
Today I'm talking about the period. Not the kind at the end of a sentence, but menstruation--that thing women get. It begins somewhere in the early teen or preteen years and usually continues somewhere into the 50s.
Mine began when I was twelve. It wasn't a happy occasion for me. I didn't celebrate my fertility or feel like a woman. I was pissed because it was summer, and I wanted to go swimming every day there wasn't lightening in the sky. No, I didn't learn of the magic of tampons, because I think my mom thought I was too young at the time. How I got old enough a month or so later is beyond me. And when I did get to use one, it didn't help that I didn't admit to not knowing how to use it and inserted it wrong, causing a very embarrassing pool episode. Then I decided to read the instructions in the next box my mom bought. I couldn't read the original instructions, because like most women I know who use tampons, my mom didn't need to read about TSS and how to properly insert the thing each time she opened a fresh box. You open the box and get the stupid piece of paper out of the way.
I learned a couple of things about tampons I will pass on to my own daughter when the time comes. First, she is going to get a lesson on how to insert the damn things whether she thinks she knows how to do it or not. Also, just because you're young does not mean you will have a light flow. I started off almost right away with a heavy period, and those straw wrappers they call junior tampons did nothing to help.
And that brings me to one of my major complaints about this monthly cycle. It seems the plagues of menstruation should be balanced in some way. If you get a heavy flow, you should have a shorter period. Same with cramps and PMS. I started off with a heavy flow and a full seven days. Luckily, I did not have cramps or PMS, so I felt this was a very fair trade. Then I had two children, and instead of having pregnancy relieve cramps and PMS symptoms like it does for many women (that's what I hear anyway), I got them. On top of that, now I also get a little extra time tacked onto my period where things aren't heavy enough for a tampon but not gone either. All in all, I have between ten and twelve days a month where I deal with this crap, and I'm often a crabby, whiny, fight-picking, tear-shedding mess for at least half of that. It sucks ass. The only thing I have going for me is this monthly disaster is predictable. I don't think predictability outweighs all the other hell I have to go through though. It's not a fair balance at all.
I thought maybe the pill would help ease things a bit. I'm supposed to take the pill anyway, because I have ovarian cysts all over my enlarged left ovary that sometimes give me crampy pain, and not just during my period. As if the whole period thing isn't enough to deal with, I have that too. I'm just a lucky, lucky girl. So anyway, I took the pill, and then I didn't want sex anymore. At all. Ever. I didn't even think about sex. Once a month, I might have been convinced to pretend I liked sex, but that was about it. It also wasn't enough. I tried different pills, all having different nasty effects on me from bleeding all month long to biting anyone's head off that looked at me. I decided to just suffer the cysts and let them grow at will. They weren't worth the hassle of the hormonal upheaval I experienced while taking the pill. The doctor didn't seem worried about it, so no pill for me.
Now I want sex again, and all would be well if it weren't for the fact that at least a third of the month is blocked off because of my nasty period. I can sometimes get away with using those Instead SoftCups, cutting that third of a month down to about a quarter. But either I don't quite have the hang of those things, or that's just the way they are, because I always make a huge mess whenever I use them, and for once I thank God we have the tiniest bathroom in the world, because I can wash my hands while still sitting on the toilet. Unless it's a super-light flow day or that tail-end stuff that doesn't know what it is, I end up looking like I birthed a baby. So the SoftCups have been restricted to less messy days where a vat of boiling water is not necessary. All that for sex.
It's just not fair. I know others have it even more unfair than I do, but that doesn't make me feel any better. It doesn't keep me from eating every ounce of chocolate in the house and a half gallon of Dulce de Leche ice cream in two days and three bags of popcorn all washed down with two pots of coffee and a case of Coke. These cravings are killing me. And if I didn't already feel fat and dumpy from all the bloating, having the average dietary intake of an elephant is not helping.
Exercise relieves things a little bit, and it does keep me out of the refrigerator as well as counteract previous trips to that appliance, but it's a little uncomfortable. A, this bloaty time of the month is the only time I ever have what might be considered big boobs. Big boobs are not very cooperative while running, especially when you just don't know how to deal with those boobs because you've never been very well endowed. B, cramps and crabby ovaries do not like being jostled around. They will make you pay. C, there is the constant fear that you didn't wait until the very last possible minute to insert that tampon, so it will not last, and the diaper-sized pad will have shifted while exercising, because that's what they do, and every little bead of sweat that forms on your legs causes a panic attack, sending your heart rate into a continuous din, so you have to stop and walk for fear of cardiac arrest and to try to nonchalantly check for leakage. That leakage might never have happened, but it will be the one time I decide to trust the feminine hygiene products that I become too embarrassed to ever run in the state of Pennsylvania again. So exercise causes its own array of woes when the period is involved, which seems to outweigh its benefits.
Short of a hysterectomy, I'm probably looking at another 25 to 30 years of this, because menopause will most likely elude me until the bitter end. That, or I'll have the worst menopause ever; full of unpredictable bleeding, endless hot flashes and the temperament of a hippo. My family will have to buy a remote island on which I can live until death. Once we're done having babies, we should just be able to turn this shit off.
So does it sound like I've had to change a Super Plus tampon three times since I got up this morning?
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One Year Ago Today:
