Dearest loves,
Last summer, I was awoken by a string of words:
SHE’S NOT BLEEDING YET BUT I AM
I immediately went down to my computer and began writing. And writing and writing. A book was forming.
Since then, so much has transpired in my internal world. That book currently sits on the back burner of my mind, along with a whole crate of creative projects.
To each thing, a season.
And for me, this season is all about ACCEPTANCE.
I came across that initial inspiration – that seed of a book – the other day.
May it serve. May it delight. May you be blessed with soft nights.
“SHE’S NOT BLEEDING YET BUT I AM”
ON PERIMENOPAUSE
August 2024
I wake up at 5am. It’s the third time this night that I’ve been spooked awake by a demon I’ve known very little about before. A demon that sits its heavy ass on the hollow of my throat and shoves anxiety in my throat, throttling worry down my gullet until my stomach feels like throwing out everything it has ever known. Down to the last ounce of life.
The dream I was shot up from for the last time on this particular morning was the dream of my daughter placing herself in my lap, demanding herself into my arms.
“My stomach hurts so badly. It just started. Pain, sharp pain, shooting pain.”
We laid down on our left sides, our feminine sides, her in my lap, and I rubbed her belly. Clockwise in circles, just like my dad taught me back in 1982.
“You’ve got to get it all moving in one direction, Sarah. The same direction. And then it will know which way to move to pass.”
I am woken with the words: she’s not bleeding yet but I am.
In December 2022, at the age of 47, I bled for the entire month. Thick rich deep heavy blood. It came and it came, waterfalling its way between my legs and down my thighs. Onto bistro barstools and deskchairs, into my sequin leggings and pajama pants. I wore black – only black – the only color that entirely invited it with self-respect.
One night, I bled so badly. As I sat in my chair – luckily cushionless – in a trendy Japanese restaurant in Stockhom’s Östermalm with three men, discussing projects and business plans, I could feel a rush of fluid. A waterfall. My black tights and I walked towards the bathroom, hoping no one could see. And when I got to the toilet, I used an entire roll of toilet paper to wipe up the blood, swiping from my ankles to my gash. How would I make it home without causing Armageddon on the way? The subway seats were covered in light blue fabric.
We were moving to South Africa in one month’s time. My dad had passed two months earlier. It must be that. Stress. It must be that. Once we’re in the sun and my dad is a bit colder, the bleeding will stop.
A few days later, Antonia rang the doorbell. My daughter’s friend’s stepmom, she worked as a functional medical practitioner, specifically specializing in women’s health. I’d mentioned the bleeding to her on the phone. At this point, I’d told everyone. I was scared, and when I’m scared, I tell the world. Well, maybe not the men on that Japanese night, but all the women I knew. Because maybe one of them knew something. Maybe one of them had been here before. And since I knew fuck-all about exactly where right here was or where it was headed, I was desperate for information.
Antonia knew.
“How old are you?”
We’re sitting on the dusty pink sofa in my living room. I’m wearing the kind of pad they give you at the hospital when your vagina has just been ripped in two by a human’s head popping through. The fabric on the sofa is safe for now.
“47.”
“You are most likely in perimenopause.”
“Pear-y what?”
How did I get to this point in my life and never hear the term? Two years earlier, suffering from huge anxiety and having my SSRIs calibrated and recalibrated by my general practitioner, I asked:
“Could I be in menopause?”
It was something I knew very little about – nothing more than hot flashes (or was it hot flushes), a decreased libido (if mine got any less than this I’d become a jellyfish), and the odd hair growing out of the odd unwanted place on my face.
“Nah, you’re too young. And your blood tests look normal.”
Little did I know that a woman’s blood tests are one of the most unreliable tale-tellers when it comes to perimenopause, as our estrogen fluctuates greatly over the course of a 28-day cycle. But I trusted her. I took the prescription for an increased dose of antidepressants and headed home.
Little did I know that anxiety – often the paralytic kind – is a very regular guest for a great number of women when estrogen starts leaving the building.
Menopause increases vulnerability to depression and anxiety, perhaps via estrogen fluctuations affecting serotonin and GABA. Underlying neuroticism and contemporaneous adverse life events are also risk factors for menopausal decompensation with depression. (Alblooshi et al., 2023)
But that I wouldn’t learn until later.
I swallow the pills and pray for the best.
“Perimenopause is the longest stage of the menopause process,” Antonia continues. “It’s the main thing you’ll be in. Menopause is once your bleeding has completely stopped and you’re done with your cycle. Perimenopause can last for up to 10 years. And it sounds like you’re in it. You’ve got to go get a scan at the hospital for this bleeding.”
She was a hippy doctor, at least that’s what I had her as, with her practice in Järna, her kids in Waldorf, her home on a farm, and that beautiful crescent moon tattooed on the crown of her forehead.
“Make an appointment as soon as you can.”
I told her about the internal stress and pressure of our move to Africa. Of my decades-long dream to get my family into a life in the sunshine (out of Sweden) coming true. I told her about all the fear circling in my nervous system. A new kind of fear and cautiousness I hadn’t known before.
Me, the world traveler.
Me, the multiple passport holder.
Me, the lead singer with the raucous head-banging stage presence.
Me, oh me.
What side of the story am I on, Antonia?
“When nature is running its beautiful course, the oldest daughter begins bleeding as the mother stops. It’s as if, from generation to generation, we hand down the blood rights. We transfer the baton of reproduction, of being in the societal spotlight, from female hand to hand.”
That was the most gigantic piece of poetry anyone had shared with me in a long time.
Maude was 10. Flat-chested and smooth-skinned, I still had some time to go.
She may not be bleeding yet but I sure am.
——-
Thank you for your eyes. Your time.
And for your precious existence.
Whatever season you’re in.
Love,
Sarah ❤️