September 6, 2014

How I Find Comfort During My Period

Igwe asked me, as he often does, “What are you blogging about?” Sometimes I tell him what I’m blogging about, and other times, I tell him that he has to wait and see. This time, I said, “I’m typing a sponsored post for Stayfree® pads about what makes me feel better and feel comfortable during my period.” Although I did not ask him, he decided to contribute to what he believed makes me feel better. He said, “Work.”
I might have blinked ten hundred thousand million times. “What?” And he told me again that work makes me feel better during my period. What??? And he was not even referring to Verastic Work (as I call it) which would have sounded better, although still not true, he was referring to my 9 to 5 job. I asked several times, “Work? Work?? Work???” Why on earth would you think that work makes me feel better, I asked him. Have I ever done or said anything to imply that while I’m bleeding through my orifice where the sun doesn’t shine, I’m really wishing I could be working?
He quickly apologized. I think he did so more because he did not want me to talk his ear drums off than because he understood. I was reminded again about how men cannot, and do not know what it feels like to be on your period. An ideal period would be one where there would be an app (since there are apps for everything) placed inside of me to automatically suck it all out, dump it down the toilet, wipe me up, keep me fresh, clean, and dry, kill the bloating and discomfort, and most of all, kill the irritability and leave me feeling like I just ate the best piece of cheesecake. Happy.
In the absence of that, however, a good book always distracts my discomfort. It sucks me into the world of the character and, for a moment, I forget who I am. I would imagine that Igwe is thankful to my books and the authors that wrote them for distracting me and making me forget, even if for a few minutes, that I don’t feel good, that I’m uncomfortable, that I hate how my skirt is tighter than usual because my tummy has suddenly increased overnight, that I’m pissed off without knowing why, and that I don’t want to be spoken to. Unless it’s to be asked what kind of cheesecake I want.

Now that I think of it, cheesecake makes me feel comfortable, too. So why Igwe said that work makes me feel better still befuddles me because if anything, I might be secretly plotting a movement to have women be legally required to stay home and be comfortable. Also, secretly, I might be wondering what it’ll take to make Igwe, too, have his period.

For now, Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is keeping me very comfortable. Yes, you guessed it. I am on my period.

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