This weekend I went camping with my boyfriend (still Redbeard) and forgot my birth control. It's the patch so I had a couple of days before the period really set in. I've learned from the past when I've done this and I know that once the period starts, it's here, and you can't just slap another patch on and pretend everything is okay. Just accept it.
But as we were driving out to the campsite and I had this realization, I referred to it as a mistake. Oops, I forgot my birth control, dammit, now I'm going to have a period, what a mistake.
I was driving home today when I realized how fucking stupid and shitty it was of me to say that.
It's not a mistake that when I don't perfectly control my menstrual cycle it happens at unplanned times. It's not a mistake that I'm menstruating right now, that's what my body DOES. That's just the kind of body it is. And then I took it further. It is not my fault that I was born into a world where menstruating is something shameful. I mean, people say women get so emotional, they get tired, they can't do work, you can't give them menstrual leave, it will just make men look like better candidates. Yeah, because the world was set up by men, dumbass. It's set up for men, and men don't menstruate, so why would they have to consider that at all? (thinking of other people, nope, never heard of it)
If menstruating didn't make me tired or grumpy or in need of rest, it wouldn't be a problem at all. the fact that I need those things is the "problem" because i'm just supposed to work forever and be efficient all the time. That's why birth control has made my life so much easier: when you don't have to manage having a period all the time, you get to experience the world like it was actually made for you.
But in my case, menstruation still comes.
It is not a mistake. It is not a problem. It's just a fact. I have a body with a uterus that produces a uterine lining and sheds it unless a very worthwhile embryo implants (because that's the whole point of menstruation, to protect women from undeserving embryos that would waste their time and resources and risk their life even though the embryo has no chance of surviving. It's not my body punishing me for not being pregnant, it's my body protecting me from pregnancy unless it meets only the strictest, highest standards), the lining is shed. This lining is the equivalent of a small organ, and growing and shedding it takes physical energy from me. That is why menstruation is tiring. The hormones in my body change to facilitate this process. That has other physical effects on me. This is just a fact.
I can control this with artificially high levels of estrogen, I can create the hormonal signals of pregnancy in the body in a way that stops the cycle. For a period of time. For me that is about 3-4 months at a time, but that lining starts coming out eventually no matter what I do, and that's why I can't just not have a period, ever. My body will have one whether I like it or not.
I think I got too into that, into pretending I didn't have a uterus and was able to exist in this world like it was designed for me, and experience all the convenience of that. And when I need to take time to rest, when I'm tired and my hormones are different from how they normally are and I need a different sort of care for myself, the world cruelly reminds me that that's not allowed, that's not considered normal, it's a problem and a liability and this world was not built for me to have a period, and because of that it's not built for women.
My body and its normal functions are not a mistake. Me failing to perfectly control those functions such that I may experience the world as if I am one of the people (men) for whom it was designed is not a mistake. it's just how things are. And I realized how much I was alienating myself from my own experiences by calling them wrong, bad, mistake, stupid.
So I'm having a period. The world should be built for me too.
