What Does Getting Periods & Redecorating a Nursery Have in Common?
It was a lovely moonlit evening. My partner and me were taking a walk down a rather quiet lane towards the back of the house. It was in between a beautiful conversation that a young, drunk boy came driving into us in his flashy car. Usually, it would take me a minute to reorient myself and get on my way. Maybe just take a few deep breaths, thank God that I am alive and carry on. But that day, it was a little too close. I lost it. I don’t know what came over me… I yelled! This time, it took more than just a few minutes to calm me down. We were back on our walk and I was all flustered. My partner cracked a few bad jokes to relax me and as always, it worked. After a bit of some silence and with a little hesitation, out popped the most common question… “[inlinetweet prefix=”So I know it’s THAT time of the month… But why do you women get so edgy around then” tweeter=”” suffix=”null”]So I know it’s THAT time of the month… But why do you women get so edgy around then[/inlinetweet]?”
Silence.
I had not completely recovered from what had just happened… and now this? Of all the moments, he chose this one!
Yes… that is one of the most annoying questions a woman can be asked, especially when she is menstruating. She has no answer that will make any sense to a man and she will only get more frustrated. Believe me…I have tried. But that evening, I was in the mood to really explain this to him. I wanted to make sure he understood how I felt when I was in this phase and so out came the storyteller’s hat and this is what followed…
“Have you ever seen a woman re-decorate a room?”
“Yeah”
“Have you ever seen how carefully she looks after each and every detail?”
“Oh yeah, for sure.”
“Have you seen how irritated she gets when something goes wrong and she has to correct it?”
“Yeah yeah, it’s a nightmare!”
“Can you imagine how she feels when she is not in complete control?”
His expression answered the question in more than enough detail.
“Right! Now picture this if you will…e[inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]very month, the woman just HAS TO redecorate the nursery where her kid is going to spend the first nine months of its existence[/inlinetweet], even if she is not yet planning to have one! And she only has a maximum of five, totally unpredictable days. There is so much work to do and absolutely no help in sight for the most part. She is on her own. The only possible help are her hot water bags, anti-pain meds and sanitary napkins.
Thus begins her process of redecoration. She has to change the wallpaper, that is, shed her uterine lining completely. This is just like peeling off the current wallpaper, more like pulling it off the wall with all the strength one has. Or maybe…scrubbing the current paint with the roughest sandpaper one can find. This often leads to clumping in the flow, quite like removing the dumped paint or paper in the trash. Only it’s getting peeled off from the inside of her uterus and it HURTS and CRAMPS most often than not!”
“Ouch…it’s painful just to listen to!”
“But it’s only just begun. All the old furniture has to be taken out. That’s what the blood flow does…it removes all the eggs that went to waste…that did not get fertilised. Now this has to be a thorough process. One old piece of furniture and it will look like a sore thumb. One residual egg and the uterus can have an infection. Now it’s time for the latest, most trendy furniture to be set in. Preparing for the new eggs. Yet there is stuff she’s emotional about and wants to hold on to (read: water retention) and that leads to bloating and sometimes swollen legs. So she has to be coaxed to let go, a bit of vomit and all of that. At other times, she has to be pushed to do this… loose motions. Yet sometimes she is stubborn… constipation.
All of this leads to physical fatigue and she feels a void within, literally and metaphorically. To overcome this, she feels cravings and sometimes she just wants to eat and at other times she wants sexual pleasure. Eating, in her mind, may make her bigger and sex is just gross at a time like that. So neither of herneeds arefulfilled. This obviously just frustrates her beyond a level she cannot handle. Now her mood is totally off and it just so happens that unreliable hormones handle this aspect of her behaviour. It makes her swing from one extreme to another… and all of this while she is redecorating, if you will.
“Okay, I think I get the point!”
“Just one last thing… NONE OF THIS IS IN HER CONTROL!”
“[inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]You should have been my Biology teacher in school[/inlinetweet]…I will never forget this!”
He gets the point and we share a laugh. But this explanation seems to have changed the way he looks at menstruation forever! My story worked!
Author: Pushtiie Shiv Shakti
Illustration by Aditi Gupta.
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