My period was three weeks late. I know, T.M.I.
And, like any woman who has had a period come late, I was majorly freaked out and panicked. Believe me when I tell you that I was mere moments away from going outside and running into traffic! In hindsight, I see that this was all part of my ever-getting-increasingly-horrible PMS, but what are you going to do?
I called any friend that would answer the phone to ask them to pray that my period would hurry up and come because not getting it on time makes me incredibly anxious and scared. And they all pretty much gave me the same response: "You aren't pregnant, so why do you care?" Um, what?! I have been getting periods every month since I was 11-years-old. Forgive me if it not coming in a month rubs me as curious on the low end and horrific on the high end. But you won't believe what I discovered in talking to my friends. I have some homies that have gone two and three months without having a period before and they were not pregnant. Is that not crazy?!
Mere hours before my period actually came, I was feeling pretty down and hopeless. "Maybe I am going into menopause," I said with a deep sigh as I talked to P on the phone.
"It's not menopause," he said, assuredly, "but you may be on your way there. I mean, you are almost 40."
He was not with me for me to punch him in the face, so I just screamed silently as he changed the subject about something guyish that I didn't care about. As he rambled on and on I thought about what he had said. What if he was right? He is a nurse after all. What if I was sliding on the banana peel towards middle age? I mean, is that possible? I can remember so clearly being in college and goofing off with my friends. And what about babies? True enough, I do not want kids. But for some reason it dawned on me that I did want to be married while I was still young enough to have them. I guess so that people could see that I was childless not because I am old, but by choice. Is that stupid of what?
After I got off the phone I cried and cried, mourning my lost period and my youth. Sooner than later, I imagined myself in a cold gynecologist's office, going over hormone replacement therapy and how to address vagina dryness. I though of my grandmother, who had gotten a hysterectomy. She was the picture of femininity; however, every few weeks, she would ask me to help her pluck her chin hairs. Was I going to get chin hairs? I cried myself to sleep, only to wake up an hour later to go to the bathroom and discover that Aunt Flo had arrived, unapologetically late. I sighed a sigh of relief. I was young for another month.
