Not Dirty

Dear period,

Thanks for forcing me to get comfortable with my vagina. thanks for making me spend countless hours digging for my menstrual cup the first time I used one, getting covered in blood and not feeling disgusted, because it wasn’t dirty. It was natural. Thanks for helping me understand my health, by disappearing when I had disordered eating, reminding me that skinny doesn’t equal healthy. Thanks for being predictable. Thanks for being 3 days long. Thanks for making me feel in tune with my own experience of womanhood, but allowing me to realise that being a woman is not confined to having a vagina that bleeds, or breasts that ache for half the month. and I mean ACHE, that is something I don’t thank you for, period.

Yours faithfully, your owner

Anonymous, UK