Dona E. Bowens

I’m 52 years old and on my period. Following a 10-month hiatus, my hormones decided to turn the key in the old jalopy just to see if the uterus could still start up and lo and behold! the ovaries can still kick out an egg. Bastards.

I knew my crafty, conniving organs were up to something last week when my guts started cramping. “This ain’t no ‘too many bean burritos’ type of cramping,” I thought to myself. “This feel like some ‘Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret’ kinda cramping. Nahhhhhh…can’t be.”

Then a few days later my nips joined the mayhem and got tender to the touch like they used to do during my baby birthing years. But I was still sitting pretty in the dungeon of denial, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t have to restart the countdown clock. A friend told me that you have to go a year without a period before you get your, “I survived the Trump Administration & Menopause” badge. Just 2 more months to go and I could fully embrace rocking the muumuus and I could throw out the “just in case” box of tampons.

I had plans of taking the just-in-case-tampons down to the university, tossing them on the lawn of a sorority and shouting, “I don’t need these anymore, young ladies, you take them. Enjoy 30 more years of fucked up panties and bed sheets. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to buy a pair of white pants to match the white couch I just bought. Ta ta!”

But no. I pulled the just-in-case-tampons out of the drawer, blew the dust off and sighed.

“Hello darkness my old friend,” was sing-songing through my head as I held the box. Being post-menopausal frees you from so many things, like horniness, for example. (See, that was another tell-tale sign that my organs were up to some mischief. Found myself searching “BWC” last week. Yeah. If you know, you know. Don’t knock my kink.) Don’t get me wrong, I still recognize a guy as hot, but it’s more so akin to appreciating a beautiful painting. I’d no more want to hump a beautiful man in just the same way that you wouldn’t catch me humping a Picasso.

But now that I think about it, since I’ve been sling-shotted back into the baby-birthing demographic, I would hump a Picasso before a hottie. The hottie ain’t getting me pregnant and leaving me to go on a Mexican Abortion Odyssey all decked out in my muumuu. You know how ‘Merica is about abortion. Oh helllllll no.

And so, the just-in-case-tampons will go back in the drawer for another year, damn it. And I think I’ll get the girls together for movie night. What movie, you ask? Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Duh.