Follicular Phase
I messaged a friend this morning saying, Even though I feel a baseline thrum of deep melancholy, loss and abstract longing, I’m feeling full of beans and joie de vivre. It can only mean one thing: Follicular Phase!
I’m not sure if it is post-pregnancy/childbirth hangover, being more attuned to my body generally or, dear god, approaching perimenopause, but the ebbs and flows of my hormones and menstrual cycle feel infinitely more pronounced, more articulate, the past few years. I rattle with nerves as my period approaches. Last week I was listening to a song that had a loud drum sound I wasn’t expecting, and I nearly jumped out of my skin at it, as if a stranger had leapt out of the bushes to attack me. Each month I think, without fail, and without any remorse, purely pragmatically: I need to learn some new makeup tricks because I am quite ugly now. I want to lie down on the floor and die from despair during my actual period. But during my follicular phase I feel practically godlike. Um, am I actually gorgeous?! I rarely feel hungry, could exist off fresh air and vibes. I have so much energy; an acute feeling of my own competence in all things.
I had lunch with a friend recently. I think it is fair to say both of us are going through what could be termed a Hard Time. We were talking about the consolation of meeting ourselves where we are at. How do I feel today? She told me she asks herself: where can I physically locate this feeling? We took it in turns naming the emotional sites of our bodies. She feels sadness in her chest. I also feel sadness in my chest; find myself clawing at the skin there. Her anxiety is felt in her throat. Mine radiates up and down my arms, fizzes in my belly. Love is felt in the solar plexus, the pit of my gut. I find myself picking at food around my son, sometimes, because I feel so full up of love for him, there isn’t room for anything else. Jealousy I feel in my face, specifically, my cheeks. Frustration is in my hands. I could go on.
I am trying to embrace transience, recently. I am trying to accept how I feel, and feel it in my body. As a parent I hear myself saying it’s just a phase! an awful lot. Waking up at 5.30am? Just a phase. Crying at every nursery drop off? Just a phase. Insisting on wearing a knitted jumper at the height of summer. Just a phase.
I often lament being so in thrall to the fluctuations of my hormones, how forcefully they determine my mood, how and what I think about something, but I am trying to accept them for what they are: the changing of a season: out with one, in with another. The lows can be low, but the highs can be ecstatic. Either way, they’re impermanent, and I always feel a little different the day after.