Right around my birthday this year, I skipped a period for the first time. I turned to my mother for reassurance, expecting some perspective on what would surely be a long, slow, piecemeal goodbye to my fertile years.
“Yeah, your grandma just stopped getting her period one day when she turned 40, maybe that’s it,” she told me.
Most people who have crossed some thresh hold, like menopause or divorce or losing your virginity, tend to look at the people panicking behind them at the line with a little mockery or carelessness. Obviously, life continues after passing these signposts, so why are you making such a fuss? They so immediately forget their own angst as they made the transition. I find it annoying even when I do it. And I also hope that’s what death is like: once it happens I won’t understand everyone still agonizing over the inevitability.
But right now, I’m fighting the idea of running out of periods. For as much as I’ve hated having them my whole life, I was absolutely insane during this no period month. That might have been the dysfunctional hormones as well, of course, but it did seem psychologically hard. I know there are some people who will not be able to relate to this because their menstrual cycle is a bit insouciant and unpredictable, but mine has always come very regularly and more frequently than even God intended when he cursed Eve.
In the year preceding this vacation month, it had arrived a couple days early and a couple days later a handful of times, which was a warning that *things* were changing. But as I reached the end of the outside range this round, I started to panic. Every trip to the bathroom was like waiting for the jury to read my verdict. Woman? Or Crone? And each time, the toilet paper announced in a booming voice, “We find the defendant DRY. DRY DRY DRY.”
By day 33, I was texting every woman I knew over the age of 35. Had they? What happened? Will I? The questions aren’t exactly clear because you don’t really know what to ask. I think this point has been made by many health practitioners and has become a pretty popular talking point on TikTok (on my middle-aged algorithm anyway), but you really spend far more time in life after your period than before and yet we scarcely hear boo about it. Aside from the tidbit about my grandmother’s magically disappearing menses, the only thing my mother ever told me about life after your period was this:
“Everything seems really gray. Like there’s no color.”
As you can imagine, this has not been a very exciting thing to look forward to, though I did. A lot. Until now.
As the weeks turned in a month and then six weeks, I actually felt anything but empty. I was swollen, moody, irritable. I had PMS that never went from pre- to post. I sort of pictured my uterus as one of those pieces of fruit that looks ripe and ready on the outside, but when you cut it open the pits have stuck to the rind inside and there’s no meat to chew. No juice. It was left too long on the vine.
That’s really the crux of it. My seeds have never been fertilized. This isn’t really a post about having kids, so I won’t dwell on it too long. But you can’t not talk about it when you’re talking about The End of Periods. I have never had a child nor been pregnant. I don’t even know if I could be, because I’ve only tried not to be. I haven’t longed to be a mom nor did I feel like I would never accept that responsibility. It just didn’t happen by accident and I never was with someone to plan it with. To do it now, Indiana Jones grabbing his hat under the door-style, would require a series of decisions and expenses I don’t think I have the capacity for.
And yet. I do sometimes see them. A child or more than one, almost in my peripheral vision. People waiting to step into my direct line of sight, where I would have to see them every day, forever. Or maybe they’ve just passed into the rearview and will soon fall so far behind me I won’t think of them anymore, not even when I’m very old and it would be very nice to have a strong young person checking on me semi-regularly out of filial respect and/or guilt.
Either way, you’ll have to take my word for it that I wasn’t really agonizing over children as much as some would think. I was much more scared about what this would mean for things like my hair falling out, the texture and elasticity of my skin, my teeth, my eyesight, my mind. A lot of scary things can come with the end of your hormonal cycle and I have had plenty of evidence over the years as to how that cycle transforms my appearance at the very least. Would I never again look as flush and lovely as I do on day six? Would I always be as agitated and full of hate as I am on day 23? Will I be plagued with brain fog and deteriorating joints and exhaustion so profound I never dance again?!
I remember my other grandmother, whose period I know nothing about, dancing at her 50th wedding anniversary. It was an enormous affair in a Coney Island banquet hall and she hired a man named Johnny Calypso for music, an octogenarian who played all the hits of her day on a semi-automated keyboard. I was incredibly hungover and didn’t dance much, but I remember watching her in her dress suit urging her friends to join. She could not sit down. And she complained of how sore she was the next day for years afterwards.
This post is being written from a small farmhouse in France, owned by my friend Martina, who turned 50 this year. She has run out of periods and is repainting a vintage croquet set she bought at a flea market in the shade of her barn. We are going to learn how to play on YouTube later. She’s unbelievably beautiful.
So. The days passed. My period didn’t come. Not when I went to Mardi Gras, thankfully. Not when I went to an acupuncturist who I was hoping would give me some sort of herb to send it shooting out of every orifice. Instead, he pinpricked my knees and neck and applied suction cups to the wounds, which did get some blood out of my body. And it didn’t come on my birthday, which would have been poetic.
It came almost a week later, a day before the massive dance party I’d organized with a bunch of friends to celebrate all our birthdays together. I have never been so surprised and delighted to see that touch of pink that quickly started running red. I shot up from the toilet, exultant, tearing up, shouting and scaring the cat. I wanted to wander the streets with the same joyous reprieve as Ebenezer Scrooge awakening on Christmas morning and yelling, “You there! Boy, what day is this?”
Period day! I have another chance to get it right!
An hour of ecstasy was followed by bleeding so heavy I wondered if I should go to urgent care. I had been full of juice all along, every heartbeat was squeezing more out. The main concern was again if I would be able to dance. For the big event, I plugged up, put on a pad big enough to qualify as a diaper, and took enough Ibuprofen and Midol to soothe a horse womb. I felt horrendous, but alive, which is often what feeling alive means. I danced through the second most anticipated period of my life (coming in after the very first one) and I hope to dance after the last, whenever that is. Now I kind of expect each one to be.
That is a symmetrical idea to end on, but a dishonest one. I think I’ve barely dipped a toe into what’s to come with aging. My actual ending hope for this story is I will live long enough to see it all and approach the changes with enough grace that my future self doesn’t look back at the flop-sweat panicked and hysterical version of me at the thresh hold with too much pity. May she simply embrace it all as a new experience.
A book recommended to me after I texted everyone I know:
They actually all came from my friend Robin Randisi and I highly recommend her as a functional nutritionist for anyone looking for support, you can follow her here or check out her website here.
And here’s a podcast from another recommended author that I might start listening to the new time I’m terrified about aging. At the moment, I’m going to play croquet.
Okay, what’s going on with your body?
Oh the ups and downs of perimenopause! You described it so well!