Bodies and Femininity

I made an appointment with my gynecologist today. I’m two months overdue for my yearly exam. This is better than being a year overdue for my annual, which I have definitely done in the past. I’m a sexually active 28-year-old woman with an IUD implanted above my cervix – I should NOT be skipping my annual.

I find it really true that your body is an ecosystem where things effect each other.

I have acid reflux. I’ve noticed bad acid days are also bad asthma days. I’ve also noticed that depression and asthma correlate. (My asthma specialist told me once that regular vitamin D should help my asthma overall and vitamin D deficiency has also been found a corollary with depression.) If I eat corn I feel over-full and have trouble breathing. Every time I’ve been on birth control pills my stomach issues increase and so does my likelihood of depression. My asthma medication increases my acid reflux issues significantly.

I have been getting my “period” more heavily and regularly in the last few months than I had previously. I think I may be past the expiration date of my IUD but am not sure. Anyway this cycle I started having serious stomach and breathing issues. I haven’t really been eating for about 5 days now. I have been making fresh kale/spinach/apple/lemon juice and drinking that for fuel.

It’s amazing how much a person can ignore their own body and the messages it sends. If you’re at the point where you basically can’t eat anything, that’s way beyond a warning sign. I’m not sure why I ignore whatever is going on with my body instead of going to the doctor to check stuff out. Even though it’s terrifying to learn about friends who are getting MRIs and other diagnostic exams to search for the elusive cause for whatever is ailing them, I want my friends to know what’s wrong because if they know, they can fix it or ameliorate it or learn to cope properly. It’s better to know. So thank you, friends, for taking care of yourselves and listening to what your body is saying.

Cats and Compliments

This feels like a completely insane thing but I think a lot about my hypothetical future children and I have this fear about warping their sense of self-worth through phrases that are built into my vocabulary and which I don’t even realize I’m using.

The thing is that I have two cats. They’re both girls. I say the following things on a regular basis:

• Who’s the prettiest? You’re my pretty girl.
• Are you a good girl?

WHY DO I ASK MY CATS IF THEY’RE GOOD GIRLS!? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT!? And more importantly… am I going to tell my hypothetical future daughters to be “good” girls? Because being “good” or “well-behaved” or “polite” or other synonyms for the same concept is pretty much the highest compliment our society can pay a girl and that’s really not okay with me and also something that I want every woman I know to fight against those tendencies.

Add to that my desire to tell the girls that they’re pretty (though if we’re honest I also tell my mom’s male cats that they’re pretty) and I have serious concerns about what’s going on in my brain. If I can say things like that unconsciously, as a feminist and as somebody who really doesn’t believe that a woman’s best qualities are her beauty and compliance, then what chance do our girls have in a society that’s always telling them these things in earnest, both through subconscious messaging and also through the literal use of those words and phrases?

So I’ve made a pact with myself to stop it. Quit saying those phrases. Call myself out on it when I do. Whether it’s to my cats or to other people’s children. Will you do it with me?