What was this all for?

Robyn Jamieson-Voss

It started showing up when I was 14 years old. For 35 years it has been there. 

It shows up…usually…monthly. But sometimes it shows up twice in a month. Sometimes it stays away for 2 or 3 months. 

It comes around for a week at a time. Or sometimes it comes around for 2 weeks. As I write this, it has been visiting for 7 weeks. Seriously. I wish I was kidding.

It has many names. Aunt Flo. Code Red. Lady Business. Crimson Tide. Mother Nature’s Gift (hardly a gift in my opinion).

It’s my period.

I started trying to get pregnant 19 years ago when I was 30 years old. But I was never able to achieve a single positive pregnancy. In those 19 years, I’ve had approximately 228 periods, and each one reminds me that I’m not pregnant, and never will be. 

This reproductive cycle has netted zero benefits for me. It has always been random. It has always had inconsistent lengths. It has always been painful. And for the last 19 years, it has been a consistent sad reminder that my body cannot do what it was made to do, and I will never have the children I dreamed of.

A monthly reminder of failure.

So, what was this all for?  It has been nothing but a pain in the ass, and a sad reminder of everything my body can’t do right….. every….. single….. time. Its arrival doesn’t make me cry anymore, but I am so sick and tired of its randomness, its surprise arrivals, its mysterious disappearance…..its existence. I just want the system to shut down because its existence has been nothing but a burden. It long ago proved its uselessness.

It’s such a cruel thing to go through every month, a cruel reminder, when it has served no purpose.

Menopause can’t come soon enough.