Are you there, Judy Bloom? It's me,Kelly 😫
It turns out I'm not the only one on the verge of launching something.
I just found out that Are You There God It's Me Margaret, by Judy Freakin' Bloom, is coming out in a few months!
I can't believe it… I'm so excited. It was my favorite book back in the day when I was oh-so awkwardly transitioning into womanhood (I hear will end one day soon).
Here's a teensy excerpt from my book (that launches this week!), in homage to Margaret and Judy Bloom. Enjoy.
*********
I’m what is known as premenopausal. “Peri,” some of you may know, is a Latin prefix meaning: “SHUT YOUR FLIPPIN’ PIE HOLE.” ~Celia Rivenbark
Perusing the corrections my editor sent me on my book Luminous Humanness, I read a blood-red notein the column where she dared ask, “Could you replace fanfare with a more contemporary word, like drama?”
Aw, fiddlesticks! I must seem like an old lady to that little whippersnapper!
Shit! Only an old lady would say fiddlesticks or call a millennial a whippersnapper!
I cursed as my entire body, in a flash, turned from winter to summer.
In my defense, fanfare, fiddlesticks, and whippersnapper aren’t words from my Gen-X era. I’m a fifty-four-year-old who still thinks she can get away with shopping at Forever 21 (even though I don’t anymore due to speculation about child labor). I borrowed those old-fogey expressions from my grandparents, who lived through the Great Depression. Years ago, I started using those words in an attempt to be funny, and they stuck, becoming part of my vernacular.
Guilty as charged, damn millennial! I thought as my ego blazed crimson.
I don’t know if this is the case for anyone but me, but it seems my hot flashes are triggered by shame and even from her shy cousin, embarrassment. All I know is when a hot flash comes over me, I feel like I’m before a police squad shining an accusatory overhead interrogation light, catching me red-handed with the loot, red-faced, pants down, busted.
The heat bursts first in my cheeks, then radiates through my chest, blazing down my arms, erupting into my stomach, until I’m a full-body blush, glistening in a layer of sweat, twenty degrees hotter than I’d been just moments before.
I shared my observations with a dear friend, Ruble, who suggested that every time I notice a shame-inducing hot flash, I wrap myself in a cold compress of self-forgiveness and envision my inner mother and father comforting me by saying: You are wonderful despite having made mistakes. I expect a lot of you and hold you to a high standard. But don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. I see you trying. You’re safe. I love you.
So, now when I get a hot flash, I immediately fire affirmations back at my inner Cruella and, thus, drown out her critical voice yelling at me, “You’re not enough!” If I keep this up, I’ll become the queen of self-love in the process, and I just might render my hot flashes out of a job. Or maybe these heat-orgasms, as my friend Jenni Murphy likes to call them, could get a promotion and begin alerting me to higher-caliber thoughts or behaviors.
Or if my scalding surges find no better use, perhaps they will simply slip quietly into retirement, like a decorated war veteran, in a blaze of glory, feeling proud for having done a noble job.
Armed with this awareness, my hot flashes melted like the Wicked Witch of the West in an ice bucket challenge.
Now that my period has left without saying goodbye, I’m finding myself feeling nostalgic. I realized what had been sorely missing in my life: a role model to see me through this rite of passage like I had back in the summer of 1980, when I started my period at twelve years old and turned to Judy Blume’s Margaret from Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret (another character I assume is lost on my young editor), whose journey made me feel excited about getting my period.
Dear Ms. Blume
It’s me, Kelly.
Can you please write a story about what happens to Margaret when her period goes away?
Was God there to help her through her awkward transition? When Margaret lost her period, gained weight, and had hot flashes, did she find the energy to flounce hand in hand into the sunset with the grey haired guy of her dreams?
In my attempt to not just go through the change but be the change I wished to see in the world, I thought I’d dedicate this Kelly Clarkson–inspired lyric to my period: “Since you’ve been gone, all I have are my hot flashes to keep me warm.”
With my torch song and my new self-love regimen in place, my hot flashes may soon be gone as well. I’ve never been one for goodbyes, and never been much of a fan of periods, the bloody ones that soiled my panties or the ones that punctuate the end of sentences— they’re both so permanent, after all—but I’ll try to reconcile:
Sayonara, period, thanks for the good times, the embarrassing times, and the messy and oh-so-inconvenient times. I love you and can’t say I’ll miss you. But don’t worry, you’re not in trouble. You are safe, and I love you, period.
