On a bus across the city, university to main station, sometime in late June, I spent five endless minutes alternating between three thoughts.
One. Why do I feel like crying?
Two. I am going to throw up.
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On Sunday, I'll discover the meaning of all of this. It'll turn out that it's all about hue. They say that pain, real pain, hardens around a body, ossifies, so that the sufferer can't move or even breathe. Of course, you try to prepare for the pain. It's instinctive; it's part of the process. In the end, it'll turn out that I'd prepared too well.
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Five.
A girl finds herself standing with her cousins, wondering what she will wear for dress-up at Nana and Pops’s house. The dazzling range of options is almost overwhelming. Who will she be today? Through the animal costumes and the police uniforms, something catches her eye. A stunning red dress—the kind women wear to fancy parties she’s seen on TV. That’s who she wants to be.
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I thought I was done with menopause. I hadn’t had my period in over 12 months, which, according to the National Institute of Aging (NIA) definition, meant I was post-menopausal. I’d made it through a year of mood swings and depression. I adapted to thinning hair and dry skin, sleep problems, chills, joint pain, a decreased sex drive, headaches, and fatigue. An entire shelf on my bookshelf at home was dedicated to menopause related books like The Hormone Cure and Estrogen Matters. I joined an online menopause support group. I had a prescription for estrogen pills and invested more than $1k on hormone patches, so why was there blood in the toilet?
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I get home a little after midnight. Mom is awake reading Joyce Meyer on the couch and Dad is upstairs sleeping. I head to the kitchen to grab some water. She takes off her reading glasses and watches me.
“You’re not supposed to be out this late with a cinderella license.”
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