Thank you for waiting until I was off the plane to NYC to start. You even waited until I was in the hotel room and had access to all our supplies, for which I particularly thank you.
Now I’d like to introduce you to my new best friend, the sponge. The sponge will be our close companion this time around, as without it, we would not have enough cloth pads to last the whole weekend!
But don’t worry period, I’ll be getting (making?) you new pads soon, so we won’t have to be concerned about running out ever again. Just two overnight pads for a whole cycle? What was I thinking?
Yours (for the next 5-6 days),
Arwyn, in NYC for BlogHer ’10
*****
Reader participation: write a letter to your period (or lack thereof) in the comments. Funny, facetious, scathing, sarcastic? Say hi! Tell it to fuck off! Whatever the blood moves you to write.
my period is in hiatus… I havent had one since January last 2009 and the one before that was feb 2007… I cant say I miss it and would love to never have to be bothered by the damn thing ever again, but I suspect it will be back early next year damn…. breastfeeding is my friend for it keeps the pesky damn thing away.. oh and pregnancy but its not as enjoyable and I wont be doing that again ever…..so period please stay away… make me happy… D
Dear period,
Please don’t be a bitch when you arrive? Kthnx bye.
I have been using a cup for like 10 years! I highly recommend it. First The Keeper, but it got pretty smelly and started cracking after a couple years (totally worth it though, and expected from natural rubber) and I replaced it with a Diva Cup. Now I’m on my second Diva Cup and I just love not having to worry about supplies. Since my period got heavier on certain days I added cloth pads, but mostly all I need is one little silicon cup. I see disposable tampons and pads and I’m like “really? People still use those wasteful dry things?” because it is so much better and natural to me to have something reusable and not… adhering, like the cotton in tampons do. I’ve heard a lot of great things about sponges too! Just never tried them before since I was so happy with the cup.
Some women have issues with them due to cervix positioning and I had to relearn it after two children when my positioning changed. So there is a learning curve but I think that *most* menstruating women would benefit from giving it a try.
Dear period,
I do appreciate the fact that your arrival assures me that our current birth control methods are working. As you are well aware, I now use a menstrual cup. I no longer carry tampons stashed in various locations “just in case” Usually you herald your arrival with abdominal cramping a few hours before actual blood flow, this gives me plenty of time to find and insert my cup to avoid any need to change my clothing (which is nice since my children usually cause at least once change of clothing a day anyway). This system has worked for us for some time now, in fact it has been working (outside of pregnancy/nursing break periods) for almost 4 years. I even appreciate that since you have reappeared following the birth of baby number 3 I have been able to expect your arrival regularly every 28-30 days. You haven’t been this reliable since high school.
What I do not appreciate is that this month you decided to go outside our working system. Why would you decide that it was a good idea to start cramping and bleeding at the same time? Also why would you decide to do this while I was eating lunch outside of my home for the first time in a week? I hate using toilet paper in my panties. It is uncomfortable. I don’t appreciate having to run home immediately after lunch to find and insert my cup instead of continuing with planned errands. Really, if you had just stuck to our established pattern this need not have happened.
In the future please try not to change things up too much. I am very much a creature of habit, and I like to keep things predictable.
Dear Period,
I don’t enjoy you all that much (though, I have to admit I like seeing you fill up my divacup), but I’d really like you to come back. It’s been too long, and with PCOS and fertility problems running in my family (and my lack of health insurance) I get pretty fucking worried when you decide not to come around for 3-4 months. Also, when you do come back, could you try to be a little more consistent?
Thanks.
Dear period,
Thank you for waiting so long to return after my son was born. I deeply appreciate the extra respite. You now appear to be just a tiny bit late. Please tell me that is not the regular quirks of a returning cycle, but in fact a sign that our attempts to have another child have had a result….
Thanks,
Me.
Dear period,
We’ve been hanging out together fairly regularly for 37 years now, with a little time off for kids and breastfeeding. I can’t say it has been a great relationship, what with you making me crampy and cranky, but it was always reassuring when you appeared to inform me that my BC was effective.
But lately, you’ve become so erratic, so intense that I think it is time for you to leave my life – permanently! I’m tired of constantly having to be prepared for your return, and never knowing when that will be. I can no longer handle you coming and going as you please, with not even an iota of regularity, and no warning whatsoever if you will be back in a month, a week or even 7 weeks. For example – you just showed up unannounced yesterday, for the THIRD TIME in a month! And you never stay the same length of time as you used to, either – sometimes you just pop in for a few days, and sometimes a week and a half – this has got to stop!
So, go away, and leave me alone. (And then I can finally throw away those “that-time” panties!)
Thanks
Dear period,
When are you due? Were those few days of light bleeding you, or an imposter? Because light periods I am in favour of, mid-cycle bleeding I am not. And if it’s a horrible trick to make me not realise you’re late this month, I shall be cross.
Hope to see you soon, xxxk
Dear period,
Go away and never ever come back.
No love,
Shi.
Hey period! Now don’t take what I’m going to say the wrong way, because it’s not that I don’t like you. When I was 11 and had just had ‘the class’ at school? I so looked forward to meeting you for the first time. And in my wild and – ahem – not as careful as it could have been youth? There were times I was off the chart happy to see you. And I’m still only a sprightly *just* over 30, I hope we have many good years together still to come. But I think it might be time for us to take a break from each other. Like maybe a 9 month break? I’ve been dropping hints for a whole year now and pretty soon I’m going to have to start getting rude about it. So, you’re visiting just now and that’s fine but I’m getting ready to wave you an extra fond farewell when you go because I know I won’t be seeing you again for many months. Right?! (PS Universe – I hope you’re listening in because if I find myself having to repeat this next month I’ll have a few choice words for you too!)
Dear period,
You ended yesterday, so last night I got sex. I hate my week without sex, and I hate the way if I try to have sex before you go away I cramp like I’m in labor. Most of all, I hate the damn mood swings you always bring.
See you next month, and bite me.
Summer
Dear Period,
I’m so happy I haven’t seen you since March. Can you manage to stay away longer than 5 months postpartum this time?
Love, Katie
Dear Period,
Welcome back lovely! Thank you for coming this Friday and not next week during my exam, that would have been pretty inconvenient what with all the cramping and fuss you tend to bring in with you. But, like everything about you, I would have dealt and that would have been okay.
Yes, you can be an unwelcome guest who hurts and inconveniences me and yes, there are times when I have been pretty pissed off with you but right now we’re good, right? You arrive relatively regularly, which keeps me from freaking out and spending money I don’t have on pregnancy tests that I would be too early to use anyway, and you no longer make me pass/blank out with pain, which is really really nice. And you seem a lot more agreeable since I switched from those awful disposable pads which was a pleasant result of the eco-based decision.
The best part though? Is that you keep me grounded. Between the annoyance of dealing with forgetting to empty my divacup until too late, no sex and general irritability, you bring me this wonderful connection to the pulse of life that I am a part of. You remind me of my roots: of all the women in my bloodline whose bleeding meant I could be, of all the women back through the ages who have spent their with you in their different ways since time began, and of all the women around the world with whom I have this common bond.
You remind me to be grateful for you, for the hope and promise you bring, and to be respectful and mindful of the women who I don’t share you with, to know that you are part of my experience as a woman but that you don’t define womanhood for me or them. You bring me out of my head and deeply into my body in a way nothing else does. Nothing is more primal than blood and nothing makes me feel quite as powerful as hanging out with you once a month and thinking about all that you are and what we are together.
You are a bright red streak of absolute physical reality that streaks across my over-thinking, cognitive-based hectic world. You are quite literally the period that makes me pause in the narrative of my everyday life. Stop. Breathe. Bleed. Live. Life.
Your blood-sister
-me
Dear period,
Where the hell are you? I kind of miss you. I know you weren’t around for three years because of my Implanon implant, and I’m sorry for making you stop for such a long time. But it’s been three months since I had it removed now and you still haven’t graced me with your presence. I’d really appreciate it if you’d show up, even if it’s just for a little while, just so I can be reassured that my body is still working as it should!
Much love,
Anji
Dear hysterectomy,
Thank you so much for taking my periods away. I don’t miss the flooding, the cramping, the anemia that the periods brought. Having started periods at 10, I think I had plenty of experience with them. I remember well the early pregnancy that ended with gushing of blood (I was going to take a sample for a pregnancy test and instead collected a clot with products of conception). My periods ended long before the current eco-consciousness of the young women who frequent this blog, and I got very tired of pads (held on by belts) and tampons. I got especially tired of making messes on my clothes, on my car seat, etc., because the period decided to gush just then. The hot flashes that came after surgical hysterectomy were gruesome, but faded away, and now I’m left with just the pleasure of no unpredictable bleeding. Thank you!
–Johanna
I got my period at Blogher10! I feel like there should be a blog badge for that, since with all those women, there’s a TON of estrogen floating around.
Dear monthly cycle,
I really do appreciate you, I do. Just please be over before our anniversary on Thursday night. I learned long ago not to have intercourse when you were around. So please, don’t do anything out of the ordinary and be over in the 4 days you usually are.
Dear period,
Why am I always a wee bit disappointed when you come every month like clockwork? It’s not like I didn’t know we were using a condom.
Love,
A daydreamer
No wonder we kept meeting in the bathroom. At least you were more prepared then I was.