My Big Fat Greek Visitor
I got a Big Fat Greek slap in the face aged 11 when I got my first Big Fat Greek Visitor. Now by visitor I mean (get ready for it): Time of the month/Aunt Flo/Code Red or Monthly visitor as it is universally known. In Germany its called 'strawberry week' how charming! Denmark is rather inventive with "There are communists in the funhouse". There are none of those in my funhouse I can tell you! Why are there are so many euphemisms BTW for this lady time? (see I did it too) There are over 5,000 slang terms for 'period'. Rats I said the P word! Why can't we say the P word? Its made out to be so taboo and dirty and messy and covered up by adverts showing pretty girls running in into the ocean/sunset/woodland, who appear to be just oh so delighted that they are bleeding to death. My experience was as far away as you can get from this squeaky clean wholesome 'womanhoodness' thing I saw on the telly.
Because like I said I was E-L-E-V-E-N just 11...and the slappee you ask? Well none other than my Big fat Greek mumma. Why? Because its an old Greek wives tale that when you get your first period (shizzz I said it again!) you need that whack on the chops to draw the blood to your face. That smack is an old Greek rite of passage that supposedly buffers the shock of that very first menstruation. A girl got slapped in order to stop her fainting, logical innt?. Er ok...IT HURT!!!!! Was I subliminally being punished for becoming a woman? Is that what society does to us girls? Be a girl and do your girl ting but slop up your woman-mess while you do it, because nobody wants to see it. I'm afraid its too primal my dear put it away!. Hmmmm. Here's another slap to the face, my mumma-yiayia-aunts (Greek women are a kind of matriarchal she-beast hybrid by the way, they merge together over time) told me to never ever wash my hair when I had my period coz I would go blind. BLIND!??! Let me tell you the trauma I went though as an 11 year old girlwoman!!!! I was having a shower once when some water tricked into my eyes and I screeeeeeeaaamed the house down. I remember having my eyes shut tight, terrified and panic stricken thinking I was blind?. Well, until I opened my eyes that is and checked that I still had the 20:20 vision thing going on.
Here's another blow; you cant go get Holy Communion in the Greek Church, I was told as a young girl, coz you just aren't 'deemed' clean. Does that mean you are unclean when you become a woman? Deemed? Deemed by who? I did wonder standing in front of those Icons as a chubby little Greek girl all those years ago, that if this Greek God did in fact make me and all the inner workings of my body then why would He choose to banish me at a certain time of the month, a time He created right? Right? I realise now on my own journey in life that the God I know now doesn't see me as dirty. Not on any given day of any given month. Society has lied to us. It still does. Old wives tales are man-made (yes pun intended there). Being a woman is an incredible wonder. The workings of the female body are a miracle; a messy, bloody life-giving miracle and we should celebrate that. We cant all be a wipe clean Madonna (no not the Papa don't Preach one) and we shouldn't have to be.
Are you still with me? That was slap in the face phase one. Now let me tell you about slap in the face phase two. What happens to 'da little lady' when she ain't got no more monthly visitor knocking at her door? When the bits start to sag and her blossom ain't in bloom so to speak? Eh? What happens to her then? Well....about 6 months ago I popped into my local branch of Holland and Barratt just for a browse and my habitual purchase of soya milk when the manager bloke in there (now I ssssskid you not) asked me if I was looking for something for the "mature lady coming into the change of her life". These were the very words what he spoketh. No, I didn't lynch him. I was actually really taken aback, shocked and did the only sensible mature thing I should do. I lied. I told him I was actually only 32 and that I was no where near that 'change' in life. Yes reader I lied. I told a porky. A fib. I think I was just too taken aback y'know. First of all sod off little Holland and Barratt man and secondly I am not someone who will ever go through the menopause OK. OOOOOOOOKAAAAAAAAAY! I am not defunct mister and my flower can still flower. Sort of. Coz in my head you see I am still only 24, no wait I think more like 18.
Two things. One: so what if a woman gets older. Two: its none of anybody's darned business if she gets older. Ok actually three things: so three, here it is: I was really irritated by the whole 'woman getting older' experience, ney, narked. Why isn't there a forensic examination of a 'mans getting older' experience? We don't hear diddly squat about dat and we don't excommunicate the boys (in church, school, the workplace-oh don't get me started on the workplace) when their bodies go through change or (drum roll) 'the change'. For example "I'm afraid Johnny's developed four pubes today therefore he wont be allowed to attend Sunday school"
Ladies somewhere between your first 'code read' and my own term 'code dead'; that is to say, the latter part of femalehood - when you aren't/stopped having kids, aren't having periods, haven't met your 'the one' yet, have to tick the 40-100 age box on forms and have lost that perky karadashian wannabe bum (I never had it as its a recent phenomenon)- Life happens, good and bad that takes its toll on our bodies, our emotions our Spirits. This journey is both wonderful and terrifying, passionate and barren, life-changing and body-changing. Why do we not celebrate the changes of the female form? Why is it that the start and end of a woman's menstrual cycle is taboo? I hate the term 'life begins at forty!' Whoever coined that should be shot. IMMEDIATELY. Bugger off I was enjoying life before the big 4-0 thanks. Now listen, girl, woman, yes you, thou art baddass and beautiful. Yes you. Miss 22 year old. Miss 43. Miss 52. Miss 60 and all the other ladies yes all the ladies!
Your life is in cycles, a cycle. Its changing all the time and that's good. A woman goes through a passage of love, blood, birth, death, tears and laughter. Its messy yes, but it is precious. I am not coming out and saying I have hit menopause, I am not quite there-yet. But you know something, something true, my body is changing. I am changing, I feel it. After checking out three boys outta my downstairs hotel I am a little battered to be honest. I am an older but content wildly hormonal, savage, beast-mother who loves her cubs to death but has been left with the soft bumpy remains of a body she used to have. A person she used to be but isn't anymore. But that's ok.
I don't do a pert bum anymore. I don't do pert boobs. I got hairs in places where hairs shouldn't be and wrinkly bits where the land was smooth. I don't want to be the younger me though anymore because I didn't have my children then, my experiences and my life. My mum tells me its going to be ok, all of it. She means this new phase. Yes my boys are getting older and so am I but there is so much to be thankful for. Life, God, whatever you believe in or wish to call yours, has been good to me. My husband tells me I am beautiful even though I cant see it when I look in the mirror. Aren't mirrors a bitch ladies? Coz they deceive you, yes? Because in the eyes of those who truly love you, you are still you, beautiful and unchanged. We don't always see this about ourselves that's why mirrors are useless for that, we need our loved ones to show us. I know I'm on another curve of the journey, finding out who I am again "the forty plus me" "the forty plus mother/sister/friend". But you know what I think I am in need of another wake up call, a reality check, a good old-fashioned slap in the face. I think older women are beautiful because of their experiences and what they have overcome. Think of the women you admire and now think of how beautiful their eyes are because of the story they tell. It's been said 'rage, rage against the dying of the light', but you know what there is actually such incredible beauty in accepting the shading that hits us all as women, the changes and the growths, that is the sunset of girlhood and the strength we find as women in the dark.
I play a comedy character on my channel Alexia Stifado & Friends called Alexia; a washed up has been ex-Eurovision star who tours kebab houses as a singer. She wears outrageous clothes and likes younger men. She is outlandish and rude and I think she is a little bit (ok a lot) of me. Check out Alexias frank talk about the menopause or as she puts it wrongly, but rightly so, "the mentalpause"
This is Alexia. She is 40plus. But she is fierce.
"Alexia does the Mentalpause"
No comments:
Post a Comment