Two years have passed since my last menstrual period, and I'm done with bleeding forever.

This ought to fill me with joy. Though my period occurred at regular intervals for forty-two years, its arrival always seemed to catch me by surprise. Often, a stream of blood would suddenly tumble into my underpants while I was strolling through a department store, entertaining a new lover, or working at a desk on an important project. I'd feel that telltale rush, and the accompanying fear that I would leave a trail of blood marking my passage, like Gretel with her bread crumbs. Want to know where to find me? Follow the droplets.

Are wombs a kind of echo chamber for picking up vibrations from the universe at large? Is menstrual blood the language in which women speak to each other, even across time or space? Alas, this writer does not have enough information to risk giving general answers to these questions. I can only offer my own experience as evidence.

My vagina had a fracture but I did not have any health insurance. 
I stapled the pedals. 
Refusing to nourish the mother inside. The little girl screamed. nudenovelties. White knuckled nothing. 
My uterus wanted to cry but I swallowed amphetamine and stuck a thick flesh pencil inside.

“Please call me back. Something terrible has happened.”

That was the message I left on my mom’s pager when I got home from school. While I waited for her to call back, I sat on the toilet. I placed two maxi pads in my underwear, slightly overlapping, just like I’d seen her do. Thick, with two strips of adhesive going down the length of the pad, they went nearly from my belly button to my lower back. I was eleven.

My story must begin with the fact that I was raised Catholic. Or that my mother spent the first ten years of her life growing up in the shadow of a convent. Or that her older sister, her closest sister (there were two others, plus two brothers) volunteered at said convent.  Just for fun.

I left my mother holding neck scarves
I had selected from the display
neatly arranged by patterns
separated by thin dividers-

Oh ferchrissake, just say it already. 
I won't pout or get all teary or give you the silent treatment
or grab the car keys and slam doors like was my M.O. 
in our beginning eons, ages, lifetimes ago. 
You needn't be gun shy. 
I’m a grown-up now. Also, weary. Just spit it out.

Suddenly, I thought about how much I had been walking lately. I thought about my steps; how many steps I have made today, how many steps I will make until dark. One, two, three, seven, twenty-one, forty-two, ninety-eight—back to Office No. 301 to get the dissolution certificate of the company. A company that went bankrupt in 1983 and its founders still have to deal with the problems...even 30 years later. It seems slightly unfair to me. After that there are the subway stairs and me walking up and down the dock waiting for the train to Piraeus to come. Too many steps in a day. Too many steps to be made by a woman.

I don’t remember the last words my dad spoke to me. I’m sure it was something inconsequential or even nonsensical. After all, he wasn’t totally lucid for the last several days (or even several weeks) of his life. Every time I left the room, I tried to make sure that I said “I love you,” just in case it ended up being the last words he ever heard. Or maybe I said it more so that I could feel positively about our final interaction as I tried to go on living my life. It didn’t work.

Dear Daughter,

[The last time I] wrote you, I was 25 weeks pregnant, and I hadn’t yet experienced the miracle of seeing your face. It’s now been two months since the midwife caught the squirmy, slimy, perfect alien from my belly (that was you) and said that you were mine. Every day since then, I haven’t been able to stop marveling at your beauty. It’s not mainly a matter of your appearance—although you are adorable—but instead, it’s the radiance of your whole personhood. Here’s what I see when I look at you.

Hello lovely – You don't exist in this world yet, but I’m already in love with you and how deeply beautiful you are. The mere hint of your existence is exciting and overwhelming.

I’m excited to meet you and witness how your presence will shift the world.

Dear daughter,

With each passing day you grow a little taller, you toddle a little faster, you babble a little more. Your fears are few (and make no sense): you’ll fly off the stairs and you have no concept of the edge of a bed, but a threshold from one room to the next makes you stop dead to carefully tiptoe over, holding on to the door frame for dear life.

My family lived in a village outside of Dohuk, Iraq (Kurdistan) in the fall of 1988. I was 1.5 and my brother was 3 weeks old. Neighboring villagers rushed to come tell us that Sadamm and his army was on the move and we needed to leave. We left with the clothes on our backs and fear in our hearts. The journey on foot over the treacherous mountains seemed to take forever. We finally made it across the border to Turkey and settled in a refugee camp in Mardin, Turkey.

In high school I knew I wanted to be a pastor. I lived for church. I yearned for church. It was the place I wanted to be at all times. I tried to “save” my friends. I was worried about my eternal salvation and of course, like any good Christian girl, I was worried about my virginity.

I had sex for the first time at 18. I was one of the last of my friends to cash in their v-card, and it was something that I was embarrassed by and worried unnecessarily about. I had this twisted idea in my head that because I held onto it longer than most people that it was somehow correlated with my self worth.

During high school I was scrupulous in my pursuit of God. Enchanted by the idea of saving myself for someone special and keeping myself pure, I devoured books like “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” and wore shirts with catchy slogans like “Modest is Hottest.” My friends and I created accountability groups where we confessed unholy thoughts we had about romantic interests (which we knew would never come into fruition because our crushes were people we merely admired from afar).

My drapes may speak to you and you may judge me upon your field of vision.

My build of human body may bewilder you, but only from a distance or a glance.

Time.

Day after day.

Night after night.

My father suffered from alcoholism. As a result, we all suffered. I was three-and-a-half years old when my parents’ divorce was final. My baby sister was still an infant. While some may believe toddlers won’t remember, I assure you, that is a myth.

So I guess my change of heart could be summed up as this:  that of an adoring, unconditional love to one of hate, and finally sympathy and distance.  I guess some stories are incapable of having a happy ending for everyone.