Period Pause

There are four days until my period.

Sigh.

That is probably why I feel so anxious and overwhelmed with my work load and unable to stay in the moment. It’s probably why cheese is an irresistible seductress and why even the writing of this blog, usually an utter joy, is feeling heavy and burdensome.

I hate this. I am uncomfortable. My usual wit is escaping me. If I continue to write, I have nowhere to hide. So naturally, I will continue writing.

This is just how I feel today. I want this post to be clever and witty and fun and ‘up to snuff’ as they say, but it may not be. Actually, it most likely won’t be. It will be something different, something a little more raw and that’s okay. All I can do is be where I am. Here, here in this feeling of muck and yucky-ness, most likely due to hormones doing gymnastics on my insides and my uterus preparing to ‘peace out’.

I am not ineffectual during this time. I am not useless, unproductive or irrational. I ought not to be shamed, dismissed, cast in shadow and placed aside until I can be bright and bubbly and up to society’s standards of the feminine again. No. I ought to still be heard, held, seen, felt. In the same way that society casts men out for feeling anything other than anger, I resent being cast out for feeling feelings period.

Period, pause, stop, contemplate, reflect. This is a time for that. A time for connection, a time when creativity is heavy but flowing and present. It’s available and I feel connected to the earth and the stars and the moon and all the things I will tease myself for (lovingly), next week when the fog lifts and I look like that girl in a tampon commercial running through a field of daisies in blinding sunshine, bedecked in unspoiled white. White. Why do so many commercials for something that flows red, use so much white?

I am not clean, perfect and polished. I am not brand new. I am worn through, worn out, remoulded several times over and ever fit for living. I am messy and blurred, raw and ragged. I am all the rough edges that scare some and welcome others to safety. I am a woman, not a little girl. I am a woman, and this means once a month I suffer, and in that suffering I find depth and connection to my inner self and the part of me able to give life. I connect to creativity at it’s deepest core, at the root of me. It hurts. It longs to be released. It requires love. And so…

In a more concrete practical way, that is what I do this week. I do my best to love myself and support this time. To go with it, as opposed to fight against it. I let my partner know, and M and I work mindfully, taking full advantage of the weighted emotions that come into play. The characters expand, their inner lives become more full and more complex. We hold space for how much we feel, and for the strength that comes from that. I personally leave room for my imperfection during this time. This imperfection will be organized, categorized, processed and refined next week, when the light clears and my strengths shift but for now, I have to trust the raw materials flowing out.

I cringe at the mess on this page right now. I hesitate to show this to anyone, even M and yet, it feels real, it feels honest.

I honestly thank you for reading it.

- J

*J, What an eloquent and lovely post, raw, honest, and true - just like you :)  - M