(For those of you who are uncomfortable with discussion of menstruation or other uterus-enhanced people’s issues, you might want to skip this. *mwah*)

So, I’m in my mid-fifties, and one of the lovely things about my age is that my reproductive system is on the verge of hanging it up and shutting down shop. Which is fine and dandy with me — I ain’t having kids, monthly periods are both a huge pain AND my fertile periods also make me retain water so I feel like a camel most of the time. Menopause? Bring it on.

My last period was on January 6 (thank you, Cheeto-supporting yahoos, for making it easy to remember), and before that I had a period in September. When nothing happened in February, March, and April, I was starting to hope that this was it, I was done. but you have to go a full year without a period before you’re considered fully in menopause, so I had another eight months to go.

Until last night. The last couple of days I have been irrationally irritable. I knew it was hormonal, PMS without the actual menstruation, so I took a black cohosh each day to calm down and regain some balance. Yeah, except that black cohosh is chemically similar to estrogen, and apparently my body thought, “Oh, wait, there’s some spare estrogen floating around here! Welp, time to shed lining.”

Now, all of my life I’ve had heavy periods, to the point where I normally use Super tampons because my uterus laughs heartily at Regular (and once I discovered Ultra, those became my go-to tampon for overnight use). Which made the September and January periods absolute delights because they were minor. I mean, a little bit of blood over three days, and then I was done.

This time? Right back to the Supers/Ultras, and I went through a Super in less than four hours this morning. I’m really hoping that this is my uterus throwing its “Going Out of Business” party, possibly combined with me getting my COVID vaxes in March and April. But man, it’s annoying as hell right now.