Strings

Heeya,
May 2018, months before turning 12, you had your first period. As if you grew up ... perhaps you looked a little grown up too, but somehow you still seemed so little. 

I remember talking about it all for almost a year before then, trying to ready you physically, logistically and emotionally for the first time it happens, and thereafter. Before I had my first at around the same age, no one had spoken to me. It was an afternoon in school, and like many other things in life, I was initially scared and then I managed, and then, learnt through it. My Maa is the sweetest I could have had, but perhaps uncomfortable to discuss this – I don’t know, I never asked. For you I tried to do it the other way round. So you knew and learnt before the time came, and you managed with knowledge and without any scare. You remember the small blue bag with pads and my note, because your first was special and I wanted to be there beside you either in body or in mind, so you are not scared. So you are never scared of anything in life.

The month after your first, I had been reminding myself and you daily of the next date like a zombie. And the day you had yours, I too had my periods - ridiculously for the second time that month. It made no sense, and such irregularity had never happened to me ever. Anyway, I let it pass. The next month, I was counting down your date and forgot about mine. Again, we had our periods together ; And then I had it again on my own date ! On the third month, I went mad – as if once a month of this mess was not enough ! I called up a couple of friends, a doctor among them, and asked. There was no clear logical explanation as such, but she did say something about the cycles being governed by hormones and thereby the mind. She also inquired about any symptoms of menopause, which by the way, is permanent stoppage of periods, but no there weren’t any. 

I resolved to solve it before next month and sat down with myself one day...actually, I had already kind of figured it out in my head. It was just the strings, nothing else.

When you were born to me, and I loved you, I became responsible and tied up with everything of yours. With invisible strings, once the placenta was severed. That is how and why my mind prioritized your date over my date and misled my body. Once, twice. That is why my mind prioritized your anxiety over my own, your apprehension over my own, your pain over my own, your readiness over my own – and confused my body to a complete riot. My mind’s clock was naturally tuned to 'your' body instead of mine with all its consciousness, such are the magic strings…

The problem, once analysed and understood, stopped recurring. But the day I figured this out, I laughed silently, and I loved you maybe a little more, if that’s possible. 

Strings.
For life, sweetheart :)