I’ve just emerged from a seven day storm of crying at the drop of a hat, hating everything about being alive and blubbing incoherently while holding various plushies brought home from the four corners of the earth, each imbued with a lot of temporal and historical meaning for myself and the Polish Bear. It’s a storm of tidal, celestial and lunar magnetic pull that seems ready to consume me and set fire to everything and everyone I’ve ever loved.
What the hell is wrong with me?! you might ask. It’s the monthly curse or the monthly blessing according to who you ask and their intentions for that blood.
The storm has become a lot more spicy in recent years though, so perhaps this is something more? Maybe a cooling down of the engine, a volatile spluttering before running out of petrol. Night sweats, unusually potent moments of rage and anger at nothing in particular, vivid dreams, moments of extreme hornyness and flights of mental fancy into the past, present and future. Am I perimenopausal? I thought this only happened to other women. It’s bloody messy literally and figuratively.
What does it mean for the woman who chose a ‘hard pass’ on giving birth to another human being? To lose the ability to give birth? Does it change anything for me? To best honest it’s a bit of a mind-fuck because it stirs up a lot of primal emotion about all of my personal choices.
According to society, I should be knee-deep in shitty nappies, screaming infants, teething biscuits, school fees, braces and demands for toys and expensive tech right now. Instead in a clear-eyed and rational way I have decided to forgo the pleasure of those things, those interwoven and highly codified female experiences for most women that despite the wins of the past century still largely signify that you are “Woman” with a capital W.
I’ve chosen the lesser path travelled. Still – a path though and as it’s less travelled there is a shitload of exciting diversions one can take. Into wild woods, far into the depths of the ocean of the self, other, art, love, life and all that.
Instead, I decided to spend money on myself, buy myself stuff, anything I want really. Instead I went on adventures overseas with my beloved and still plan more, I eat fantastic food, learn new skills and follow any and all personal interests I have to their logical conclusions. Instead I chose to love children and animals out there in the world already, just not borne out of my own body.
What the hell does it all mean? I don’t know I’m all confused but other than when I have ads served to me of happy mothers feeding their kids, or getting life insurance or whatever… I feel pretty contented with my life, so long as it’s not the week before the crimson tide. Can anybody else relate to this, please tell me I’m not alone.
I’ve always felt like PJ Harvey was my spirit animal, especially her ‘girl about town’ period in the early 00’s where she wrote the incredible album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. There is something so defiant, adventurous, hopeful, cool and sexy about her look on the album cover here.
Content Catnip 
Great writing…..you should take huge encouragement from being true to yourself. Few can adhere to that code. Sorry to hear about the ferocity of the monthly cycle.
PJ Harvey is super cool is that pic. My fave male artist Nick Cave also seems to be supremely photogenic. (and they were once an item!).
Take care and hope the physical symptoms improve. x
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Hi Kev thank you so much for reading and the great compliment and encouragement, it means a lot. PJ and Nick are both super cool, when they were together it was the bringing together of two legends. Although Susie Bick and Nick are well suited too and have a great energy. I know you went to an amazing Nick Cave gig a while back, your writing about it was evocative and superb. His gigs stay with you I think, very powerful and haunting. It was the same for Polly Jean she was equally mesmerising on stage. Hope all is well for you my friend 🤗
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Ignore the ads and the influencers. They only want to sell you something, usually with manipulative techniques to make you feel broken and promises that whatever they’re selling will fix you. It’s all bullshit. You’re fine as you are.
And it’s absolutely fine not to procreate. I’m seventy and child-free, knowing that I would never be able to live the artistic life I chose had I been burdened by the monumental responsibility of raising a family. I have absolutely no regrets. Life will give you plenty of opportunities—some by choice and some thrust upon you—to nurture people and animals.
I dream of a culture that would celebrate the female body’s natural cycle by allowing women that time to cloister, if they chose—to meditate, ruminate, cry, scream, dance—feel what we feel, with no apology. Instead, we just have to do the best we can.
You’re a bright light. Keep speaking out.
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Thank you very much for your kind and caring words. I really appreciate your thoughts and understanding on this. I too have no regrets. It’s only in moments of vulnerability do I think oh maybe those ads or influencers may be selling me something of value – it’s all an illusion, how it is designed to make women feel like shit about themselves, but it is the case that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t, so f**** all of it and let’s create the world anew in however way we wish to shape it. I found this book King Kong Theory of Virginie Despuentes really edifying. It is about all of this. It’s about women choosing their own paths in life and not bowing down to the expectations of society https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2099048.King_Kong_th_orie.
Here is a quote directly from it.
“ Rarely has “pro-motherhood” propaganda been so blatant. It’s complete bullshit, the systematic modern use of the double bind: “Have kids, it’s amazing, you’ll feel more feminine and more fulfilled than ever before,” but do it in a society in utter collapse, in which having a salaried position is a precondition of social survival, but is not guaranteed to anyone, especially not women. Have kids in cities where housing is substandard, where schools have thrown in the towel, where children are subject to the most vicious mental abuse through advertising, TV, the internet, companies hawking junk food and soft drinks. No kids = no fulfillment as a woman, but bringing up kids in half-decent conditions is virtually impossible. One way or another, women must be made to feel like failures. Whatever women do, someone feels obliged to prove that we’ve gone about it the wrong way. There is no correct response, whatever choice we make is necessarily wrong, and we are blamed for a failure that is, in fact, collective and involves both men and women. The weapons used against our gender may be specific, but the method also applies to men. The only good consumer is an anxious consumer.”
Excerpt from King Kong Theory, Virginie Despentes
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Being a woman is hard! Too hard sometimes in my view.
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Oh yes it definitely is. I would say it’s a burden more than a benefit but I also think being a man is also hard, I would say just being a conscious, thinking and feeling person hyperaware of the world is a bit of a double-edged sword for sure. Thanks for the comment my friend
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You’re so welcome! And I agree with that too.
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