Too much biology

(You've been warned.)

I have this very vivid image in my head. If I was a filmmaker, then this is what I'd be making today:

A girl/woman goes about her black and white cartoon life. She lives as in a daze, in greytones only, goes about her daily business from child playdate to school engagement to do the cooking - you know, the usual stay at home mummy thing. But she's all cute with pretty hair of course. You see her breastfeeding a little grey baby with pure white milk from black and white breasts. I think that would be a very pretty picture. But it would all be a bit sad. Then you see her go to sleep. After a much-interrupted night she drags her feet to the toilet. She sits down to do her morning pee (it's not porn - you don't see anything) still all in grey and then when she goes to wipe herself, the pure white toilet paper comes up bright red. This intense colour then bleeds (haha - get it?) into the rest of her world until everything is full of colour and she's living the same life as before exactly, doing exactly the same things, but now with interest and happiness instead of boredom and depression.
- THE END -

Isn't that strange? I've been so depressed the last week. I didn't want to do anything. I was irritable, did no housework at all (even less than I normally do), just wanted to be left alone all day. I didn't even want to go online or write and then it's really bad. I was starting to think that something was seriously wrong with me. And then this morning my period arrived - the first in nearly a year and a half - and it was as if my reset button had been pushed. The colours of the world were turned on, the sun came out (it was a bit cloudy but not so I'd notice) and all of a sudden I was functioning as if I was a regular person.

I did have a moment of sadness because now my childbearing days are most probably officially over (never say never eh) but then I had the kind of day I normally read about in books. After going to the gym, I stood in the shower for a bit to take in just how beautifully the sun was shining onto the bathroom tiles. All day, I kept coming up with new blog post topics which I should have been able to think of all week but just didn't. Even my skin felt different, it was more alive somehow. I was happier in my body, and all compassionate to the other people in the gym - the old people, the plastic surgery junky, the fitness freaks, the sweet gay couple, the fat lady. (Actually, rereading all that, I must remember to ask Babes if he put any recreational drugs into my morning mug of tea.)

Yesterday I was watching a repeat of Masterchef in the afternoon (it was Sunday) and the visiting judge Michel Roux Jr said something that resonated with me all the way into today. He said that fair enough he was very strict, but he was very happy to look for potential. Then this one candidate's dessert kind of flopped because it wouldn't stand up into its rigid round shape, but he didn't mind because the cook had attempted greatness by combining goat's cheese and vanilla and some other stuff and it tasted great. See, that made me very happy, so today I'm trying to see the potential in everyone, including myself. No "I'm so fat" - just "look at me being all restrained in my eating and giving it my all at the gym." Kindness works so much better as an attitude, also to oneself.

It always amazes and horrifies me how absolutely determined I can be by my biology. Hormones can make me depressed, happy, friendly, monster-like. So can having too little sugar, too much sugar, too little sleep, too much alcohol, too little alcohol - you get the idea. Going to the gym for an hour buys me about two days of "up"ness - unless of course I am at the wrong part of my cycle or I neglect my diet or I don't sleep enough.

At the moment, I do feel like sometimes being a mother is too much biology (a bit like Ms. Moon's "too much nature") - growing babies, expelling them, feeding them, preparing for potential new ones. Whenever you settle into one manifestation of your body, the next one comes along already. Next there will be menopause and old age - I feel like a silk worm or frogspawn or something. I could do with some stability for a bit - in my body and in my moods. That would be nice, and comforting.

Feeling how very very chemical my happiness is, I see why taking happy pills makes so much sense, and I think again that taking hormones to control fertility is such a dangerous game. If you mess with the reset-button of the period, you mess with your chemical makeup which really means you're messing with the fundamentals. I'm not sure I would want to risk that again. In fact, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't.

Of course if anyone ever dares to bring up this overpowering biological imperative with me, they will have their head bitten off - "up" day or not - because I will never admit to being such an animal that I can't override my basic instincts. "You on your period or something?" is never an appropriate question.

(Please do comment - I'd love to know if you feel the same/completely differently, or any other thoughts. (Men dropping by to say "You on your period or something?": Ha ha, very clever.))