Suddenly, I Cried Crocodile Tears

I had barely gotten to the end of the headline that the 2019 Class of Rhodes Scholars was the most diverse ever when a lump formed in my throat and tears flooded my vision. I didn’t even make it to the part of the story about one of these 32 exceptional people being a DACA recipient before I had to stop, overcome with emotion. This story was certainly inspiring, but it was not reduced-to-tears inspiring.

Yet, suddenly, I cried crocodile tears.

People who know me, would not describe me as sentimental, romantic or as someone inclined to weep easily. I imagine they would be more likely to apply adjectives along the lines of hard-ass, snarky, cynical, or steely to me. That is to say, this sudden emotional reaction was out of character for me.

I quickly glanced at my calendar for answers. At this point, I am going to add a disclaimer. Some of you will instinctively click away at the mere hint of the taboo topics of menstruation, periods and menopause. But I implore you, get over your ickiness and stick it out. Half the population has, does or will menstruate. Learning just a little bit about their experience should be compulsory for getting to cavort with them. And for you ladies ready to click away, well, you should get over it too. As long as you feed into the societal belief that the the word MENSTRUATION is taboo, it will be taboo.

Now, where was I? Yes, although it was a full 5-days before the start of my period, I knew my period was eminent. The crocodile tears told me it was coming. And I was sure those crocodile tears were laced with my plummeting hormone levels.

Until about 4 years ago, I had been very lucky in the menstruation category. For 24 years since I started my period, I had short, painless, light periods that came every 28 days like clockwork. I also had no noticeable mood swings, well, no mood swings I could correlate to my monthly cycle. I had never had a single abnormal pap smear. And despite being sexually active since 16 and not always as careful as I should be, I never had a late period or sexually transmitted disease.

In fact, the closest thing to a scare I’ve had in this area is when I went to the ER with severe vomiting and diarrhea. The young resident could not imagine a sexually active, collegiate woman with two sexual partners at the time just had food poisoning. Instead, he decided to lecture me on my sexual behavior then do a not-so-friendly pelvic exam in a not-too-private emergency room only to decide my vomiting and diarrhea were not related to the clap or gonorrhea or whatever STD causes vomiting and diarrhea. With a sigh, he admitted it was probably the Norovirus.

“Are you disappointed?” I thought even as I thanked him for that particularly embarrassing and scarring invasion of my uterus and sexual life.

Then, two years ago at the ripe old age of 41, my luck changed. My monthly cycle strayed from 28 days – one month it was days late and the next, a week early. The day before my period, a dull ache would start in my lower back. I thought it was my posture, so I focused on my psoas and iliac muscles in yoga. Then, I had stabbing cramps bloating and extremely heavy bleeding. I took it in stride, swallowing handfuls of ibuprofen and buying more “feminine products” (ugh the words we use to hide taboo words suck).

However, the worst part was that one to two days before my period, I would find myself getting choked up and weepy at everything – news reports about some inspiring figure, podcasts about love, news pieces on heroism, hell, even freaking cereal commercials could make me suddenly cry big, fat crocodile tears.

The funny thing about calling them crocodile tears is that by the dictionary, crocodile tears are “a hypocritical show of sorrow; insincere tears.” In this case, that is fitting. These were not sincere tears. They were corrosive, hormonal tears.

They really put some filthy rust on my steeliness.

There is a part of me cringing right now. I hate the misconception that women are too emotional and their periods make them more so. I used to roll my eyes at period horror stories. And, as I was so lucky with my periods, I found these stories melodramatic. In my lucky bliss, I didn’t need to be closely tuned into my body’s cycle. So, it took me awhile to connect my weepiness with the days before my period and my lower back ache with cramps and my sudden changes in my cycle with the M word – – – – MENOPAUSE!!!! Or, to be more exact for me at just a mere 43 years old – – – -PREMENOPAUSE!!!!

Perhaps it is because Google is constantly spying on my search terms and probably watching me write this right now, I’ve suddenly started seeing the terms perimenopause and premenopause everywhere. The New York Times just had an Op-Ed called “Puberty for the Middle-Aged” and one of my favorite sassy, feminist podcasts called Unladylike did a whole episode on the topic. Even Gwyneth Paltrow admitted to having symptoms of perimenopause. Actually, with regards to that last pop-culture reference, please don’t let my dropping the name of the queen-of-all-things-privileged-white-girl-health-teetering-on-quackery detract from my topic, because this shit is real.

My mom was not too into talking about this stuff, so I really went into my 40s thinking menopause was this thing that happened one day or over a few days at some point in time after I was 50 or maybe 60. Premenopause and perimenopause were not part of my lexicon. In fact, they are not part of the WordPress lexicon since they appear with that accuastory red underline that tells me I made up a word. Well, despite WordPress not recognizing them, these things do, in fact, exist.

So, in the interest of acknowledging existence, here I am setting my steeliness aside and telling you I am so damned inspired by this amazing new group of Rhodes Scholars that I cried big fat crocodile tears.

Happy Cooking and Happy Crocodile Crying!

Side note, ya’ll should look up stock photos for menopause – the whole lot of them is photos sweating, crying, freaking-out emotional women. What the fuck?