Let’s not beat around the bush. As women transitioning from fertile to fruitless, a single word does not describe or define the shakeupology behind our hormonal meltdown. Our bodies are basically shoved into the tall cup with the emulsifying blade and spun into green mean smoothies.
It’s what we call taking a nutri-bullet for our loved ones. You’re welcome male species.
What the funk is perimenopause anyway? Google says “around menopause”. Well, if I’m around something, hell is the more apt word. As a minus four (backwards from that big number that begins with a five), my ‘mone levels are riding the lunatic fringe. I’m up in everyone’s face, not lurking in the shadows.
The experts claim Age of Aquarius includes hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, sleep problems, menstrual irregularities. What a marginal list. Pfff.
Just last month my chest grew three sizes and I thought I was going to lactate. The girls went all nursey on me and Dairyman’s asked me to star in a Got Milk? commercial. WebMD says high estrogen levels cause breast tenderness. Clearly the MD who wrote the definition has balls not breasts. Tender is never the adjective to describe sore boobs. Such a word implies caring and nurture.
Those of us who suffer the dainty symptom will argue the real issue centers on P.A.I.N. Mean and ugly my tata’s are cement mixers agony. Don’t touch, hug, or even braze any area between my neck and naval misery.
Seven days passed and my double lattes were still filled to the brim. And the regular at the coffee shop was a no show. Fear spidered through my veins after what if cobwebbed through my mind. I actually looked up the percentage chance of a twenty year-old vasectomy reversing itself, expecting to see a zero answer. But, a greater integer appeared.
I threw-up in my mouth a little before panic-texting my girlfriends; expecting immediate reassurance. Instead they suggested baby names.
A-holes.
Aunt Flo did finally arrive, on a raft down Niagara Falls. But who’s complaining about a bloodbath? Not me. I scratched off, look up how to raise a kid in your sixties, from my to-do list.
This peri crap has me fuming, sobbing, sweating, freezing, swearing, depressing, and bitching. Exactly what does that little prefix mean anyway? Not sure if the idiots who invent these words realize peri also defines a beautiful, fairy-like creature.
Maybe the irony is on purpose. Fire and ice are both highly valued pixies in myth lore. Just the other day I heard my husband mumble under his breath something about cold hearted, pain in the ass. Huh.
A-hole.
Feel bad for him. I give you permission. Because this past Monday, exactly twenty whole days after Auntie made her visit, cousin Red unexpectedly reared her ugly head. AYFKM? (look it up) And now, five days later, she won’t get her fat ass off my couch.
My irritability has reached a new echelon. When my hair tie slipped off during my workout, I picked it up and slammed it against the wall in a rage. The bandy thing actually yelled at me, “AYFKM?” (Now you know)
This situation requires medication. One because I’m loco, two because I’m not concerned about talking hair ties.
And to make matters worse, now, days after the period started, my gourds are gorged. How’s that for backwards ass?
So, ladies, let’s not allow these med peeps try and fool us any longer. They are on the pipe with their routine description of “around the end of an era”. We are well aware of what the almost, but not quite reality is: a freak show; which means we best stick together and start charging admission for this shit.
Speaking of period, what kind of a ridiculous name for our monthly cycle is this anyway? The word suggests the end of something. And until the grand pause of menses hits, there is no finale to this fireworks display. Whether we are forced to suffer through shark week every month or four times a year, until a cease and desist, the madness represents ellipses.
And then we’ll have total eclipses.
Piss & Vinegar,
Yours in Lunacy
(This author has chosen to share her misery without claiming it in case her kids find out their mother swears)
