Summertime Blues (instead of reds)

It has been 103 days since the onset of my most recent period. (Editor's note: Made it 108 days and started on our way out the door to a water park. Happy birthday to me!)

Lest you have the urge to start doing the menopause dance, allow me to share with you my experience over the past 3 summers:

In 2022, I stopped having a period after July 10, only to pick back up on November 2 (116 days). After that, my cycles were fairly regular (for me), about 22-40 days in length.

In 2023, I stopped after June 6 and picked back up on November 5 (153 days). The periods leading up to that were wild. In April, I had a 10-day period! In May, we were in Montreal and it was only three days... but like, still as much as the 10-day one. Mal and I were on public transit for hours sight-seeing, and it was not tidy but it was our last full day in town and I didn't want to cut anything short!

It was this day. Man, I am ready to go back!

This year, my last period before summer break was absolutely terrible. It was again short, maybe 2 days, but it was so much in such a short time frame that it was overwhelming. I had lots of things to do, but if that ever happens again, I'll just stay home. I couldn't keep up.

Will I beat last year's record? I hope so. If ya gotta bleed, you could do it in a worse place than Montreal, but I don't want to be dealing with that on our vacation next month! So hopefully we again make it to at least November before anything happens.

What I do notice is that each year so far, the period before the break backs up one month: July in 2022, June in 2023, and May this year. Wish me luck and all that.

Then again, I did have my thyroid removed so who knows if or how that might affect it. My thyroid was functioning normally before, and now things are slightly "hot" until we make sure my antibodies are gone and start dialing back the dose.

Regardless, wish me luck... This process is very annoying and I'd like to be done with it!

How Do You Do?

Today, I met a lovely woman for the first time. Our kids are about the same age (we are not!), and this family just decided to homeschool, so we ended up rained out at Chick-fil-A for our introductory play date. The kids got along really well and had fun; Mal had been so sad/borderline scared about being at a different Chick-fil-A than "ours," but the little girl and he ended up playing and he forgot all about it. The woman seemed really nice, too.

But you know one of the early things she said to me? We were discussing giving birth or something, when she said, "I used to be super skinny until I had her. Then it just creeped up on me over time. Actually, I recently lost about 20 pounds, but I'm kind of taking a break now. I need to get back on top of it before it gets out of control and I gain it all back."

As it happened, I just sat there and ate my food, largely not responding in any way to what she'd said. I wish I'd been brave enough just to ask one little question: "Why?"

Why is one of the initial things a woman shares to choose with another woman was that she wants to change her body? Why is being heavier than you used to be tantamount to being "out of control"? And if it IS, why is being out of control (i.e. eating what you want and moving how and when you want) worse than expending limited time and emotional energy on maintaining a certain type of body?

Our culture is one rife with fatphobia, and we internalize it so much that we are horrified by our bodies' natural shapes and shifts. I, for one, don't have the desire to spend much mental real estate on that kind of stuff, and I wish every woman I know could be free.

Jessamyn Stanley, one of the many women showing us that health and fitness don't have a single "look."
DON'T BUY THE HYPE!