If all goes to plan, I’m having my last period.
That’s 29 years of menstruation. Approximately 382 periods. Thousands of tampons and pads.
There’s nothing fun about menstruation and yet facing its end is bizarre. It’s what one does. It marks the months. It’s the inconvenience around which one plans. It’s the interrupter of hot tub jaunts, sex, sleep, travel, and work. It’s the fear of “leaking.” It’s the expense of “feminine hygiene” products. It’s the cause of anemia. It’s emotional volatility and headaches and confused speech and lower back pain and cramps.
I got my first period when I was 14 in the middle of a Latin exam. I was shocked and excited. I “started” later than my friends and finally felt I was a woman. My Mum encouraged me to use tampons immediately, as she had not discovered their convenience until her 30s and was keen that I not miss a minute of their advantages. It took practice.
Menstruation has become a barely manageable experience for me. I obsessively monitor dates and try to see where I will be during the first 48 hours. I live in fear that I’ll be on a plane. I mark out restrooms and meeting breaks.
I remember trying to be green in the 1990s by using natural sponges that one washes out and reuses. Incredibly comfortable but hard to retrieve. And after a few washes, they disintegrated. Did I really rinse them out in a work restroom? Yes, my friends, I once was a product of 1980s radical lesbian culture and now I’m horrified at the hygiene implications. And then there were one or two pregnancy scares where the more I waited for my period the more it stayed away.
Most horrifyingly, (the squeamish my want to skip this) was the time I forgot I still had a tampon in and it somehow disappeared. I realized something was wrong, but thought it must be a yeast infection. After several days it resolved itself. I’m lucky I’m alive.
But now, I feel apprehensive. Menstruation is a deeply ingrained experience. Will I miss it in some bizarre way? Or just what it represents? Will I feel lucky when I see my friends coping with the pain and the hassle? Or envious of their normality? No doubt I’ll feel compelled to share with you.
Stella, I predict that you may have a brief moment of “missing it in some bizarre way,” but that the feeling will be quickly replaced by relief that you never have to deal with all that bs again. Good luck with the procedure! Will be thinking of you.
This is a topic I don’t have much to say about, so thanks for being so frank about it. It seems like women often have really ambivalent feelings about their periods in a way that men don’t about aspects of their own bodies. Menstruating also forces you to be much more in touch with your body and its processes, it seems, whether you like it or not.
Good luck with the procedure.
Adios ‘Aunto Flo.’ Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Stella, best of luck and may the transition be nothing but easy. I have often wondered how I’ll feel when that day comes–in your case it won’t have the same implications of being “old” as when it happens naturally, which might be a blessing for your emotional transition. I imagine the combination of that implication plus the hormonal wackedoutedness of menopause is really crazymaking. Makes me think I must interact with women all the time who are going through insane physical and emotional spikes and somehow hiding it and seeming normal on the outside. It also makes me reconsider the irrational behaviors of some women I know who are at that certain age–maybe it’s all due to this! At any rate, maybe this procedure means you get to skip this five-year rollercoaster that waits menacingly for the rest of us with a broken seatbelt and a clattery track? I hope so.
Please do share how you feel about it afterwards, in a few months when you realize it’s really gone. And thank you so much for sharing this–as I said over on Dave’s post, it’s the personal reflections that make this site so interesting. Two days in a row! What a good week.
Hope you are well, Stella. This is an ambivalent time, no doubt, but once you’re safely through it, I say have a party! xo