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MY PREPARATION FOR MY YOU ARE ENOUGH. PERIOD PAIN BY NICOLE HEROUX WILLIAMS I PHOTOS BY NSP STUDIO BY OMENESA ORUMA AKOMOLAFE
I used to prepare for the cramps. I would eat vegetables all month and try to keep my emotions balanced so that the manifestation of chaos wouldn’t portray itself in my periods. Internal self-care and diet made my periods better, but it didn’t completely eradicate the pain, hence my excessive need to prepare for the pain, by keeping painkillers in my purse and making sure I had my heating pad close.
was not in pain. That’s when I realized that sometimes, we fear for nothing. We set ourselves up for something that will NEVER happen. We prepare for chaos. We use past antecedents to judge the future. We prepare for pain. Granted, we do get cues from our experiences, but we are not to confess that things will go wrong. We are not supposed to anticipate that everything
My period has always been a monster, in terms of pain. It snatches me into a whirl wind of agony. My legs swell, my head aches, my breasts can’t even be touched AT ALL due to how tender and heavy they get. I am just a hot mess at that time of the month. This episode usually lasts for 7 days, but the drama occurs on the 2nd day. This is when I just lay under the blanket and groan. One morning on my way back from work, I remembered anticipating pain. I literally said to myself, “I should be in pain by now. Why am I not in pain?” Can you imagine? I got ready for the pain. Day 1 went by, no pain. Day 2 came by, HEAVY AS HELL, no pain. Day 3, STORMING like a tsunami, no pain. Day 4, MODERATE STORM, no pain. This was the best period I had ever had. No pain!!! No sharp stab in my lower back. No fever or all the nonsense I’d typically have gone through. It was a normal flow with absolutely no pain. I felt uncomfortable. I was dizzy. I had a throbbing migraine. I was tired, but I 218
ROCHESTER WOMAN ONLINE : DECEMBER EDITION 2021
will collapse, and if we do, we may also be hit with the reality that nothing lasts forever. Things change!!! The pain numbs a little or a lot, or disappears. Poverty becomes rich, and wealth could be impoverished. New gets old, and old transforms. The love grows or dissipates. The living get older and die. The corpse decays and becomes an Angel, spirit, dead but alive. That’s life! Why worry about what will not remain permanent? Why confess frustration when it could only be for a little while? Why put up with nonsense when you can replace it
or remove it and THERE, the season has changed. What happens if you’re dealing with something you can’t easily fix or change or replace? I mean, you can’t just stop your period from flowing. Well, I guess you can with hormonal pills, which buttresses my point about ‘Change’. But you can’t just stop fire from burning or stop rain from falling. What you do in such a precarious situation is, you PRAY!!! Yes!!! YOU PRAY TO GOD!!! The way you have uttered your pain for so long, and prepared for it’s debilitating cycle, this is now the way you ought to pray, with anticipation that the pain will not just go away, but that He’ll fix all that encompasses the issue. If you can’t pray, then continue to be patient, but STOP TALKING ABOUT IT. Not only are you feeding yourself with your own vomit, but you are frustrating others who are listening to it. Stop uttering negativity. Stop anticipating chaos. Just do nothing and carry your cross to the cross. That’s what I do. I carry it to God, and the times that I cannot pray, I just keep my mouth shut, knowing that a shift is going to take place. It is on its way. If nothing breaks, then carry your cross with a smile on your face. Believe me, one day, the pain will end. One day, you will be on menopause.
