Welcome - the Period Emoji!
The Period emoji!
Welcome - the Period emoji!
Since late 2019 we’ve seen the arrival of the long awaited period emoji! The culmination of an international campaign to normalise periods for women and young girls. The intention of the campaign is described by Plan Internationals Hayley Cull, Advocacy & Community Engagement Director as: “Emojis play a crucial role in our digital and emotional vocabulary, transcending cultural and country barriers. A period emoji can help normalise periods in everyday conversation.” Other things in my life, however, are not always so eagerly anticipated. Like my period.
I had a weird period thing recently. Two actually. And now I am going to tell you about both of them. And you can squirm as much as you like, but you know it will be funny. And painful. As this is our journey to normalise menstruation. A normal bodily function.
I guess the preface for this, apart from the above preface, is to say that I did not grow up in a period positive house. Despite being born the fifth of five girls, (my mother was a second wife who only had two of those girls), the miserable patriarchal residence I grew up in was not one of supporting gender equality, or normal bodily functions.
So here goes, I am talking about my period. THANKS GUYS!
Here flows:
So I went camping with a girlfriend in January, and I got my period. I have to go back further. Last year my friend gave me a Moon Cup, I nearly wrote Keep Cup just then, as a thank you for accommodation. I love the barter system.
I am not really friends with my Moon Cup, unlike my Keep Cup, which I love. My Moon Cup and I haven’t really bonded, despite it literally being inside me, we are never that close. Nevertheless I persisted. But a surprise visit from flow on a camping trip left me Moon Cup-less, and a-wondering what to do.
We were camping in a small coastal town with one store. There were not going to be Thinx pants or anything eco-centric. I was going to have to buy tampons wrapped in plastic, in two separate plastic zip lock bags, in a cardboard box wrapped in plastic!
Annnnnnnnd, I did. I bought them, a small amount of vomit in my mouth. I hate plastic.
As I peri pause into a potential new phase of womanhood…
I may or may not be peri menopausal. I have been flushing out a bit. Sucks when it’s hot, but otherwise saves on heating. In fact I was in a cab last week and flushed on, and I wasn’t sure if the heat extended beyond me, but this was confirmed when the cab driver delicately opened the windows, despite the air-con being on.
Anyway, I was relaying this story to a friend on a tram Sunday night, and some youths clustered around us in their low armholed muscle tees, and I had to move away. Their potentially normal BO stench made me want to vomit the oxygen out of my nose. And potentially quarterize my brain.
Later at the theatre where our gig we hogged the middle seats in an empty front row. Why was the front row empty? It wasn’t reserved.
So we picked some seats in the middle and got some wine, and waited for The Guilty Feminist Podcast gig. Then some people came and sat next to us. Lovely women, on both sides leaving one seat beside my friend. My immediate neighbour on the other side had very strong perfume. It was making me feel dizzy and headachy. I really didn’t want that. But how come it was affecting me so much?
It wasn’t until much later that I found out why. I ran to the loo on the way to the tram after, and I had my period. My period heightened my sense of smell, and later apparently my ability to handle loud noises.
Just out of interest I stayed awake (also a period symptom) most of the night, listening to the hum of the city – the loud and annoying hum of the city.
I haven’t experienced this suite of symptoms before, but a bunch of internet searching has told me that those are “normal” symptoms. Even still, I don’t really want to see them again.
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