Periods of Life

I divorced my son’s father when my son was quite young. It felt like the right decision at the time. It still feels that way. My son’s father cared very much about himself. I didn’t want to model a woman being mistreated. I didn’t want my son to think that was normal. Or acceptable. Enough said.

The wife of one of my soon-to-be ex-husband’s friends called me. This was before caller ID. Her call surprised me because we weren’t close. I knew that her husband had cheated on her almost too many times to count. Someone in the know told me. It was common knowledge in their social circle. He wanted a divorce. She refused to leave him. None of this was any of my business. She and I had never talked about it. She didn’t know that I knew.

Meanwhile, back to the phone call. She told me that I needed to stay with my husband. She told me I had to stay because I had a child. I told her I disagreed. I told her I didn’t want to model accepting his poor treatment of me. She said we all need to settle, that no one gets everything they want. I told her that in my opinion leaving was the best thing I could do for my son and for me. She said, “Are you saying I should leave my husband?” Talk about projecting. I told her that I was not privy to what happened behind closed doors in her house and that I would never tell her what to do with her life. She continued to tell me how misguided I was. I gently explained that I was the one who got to decide about my life and hung up.

Another friend came to visit me after my husband and I were divorced. My son was just shy of two years old at the time. She commented how one of my houseplants was looking particularly healthy. Then jumped quickly from small talk to berating me for not letting my ex see my son often enough. She seemed to be unaware that my son was with his father the maximum amount of time his father wanted to see him. She also didn’t know that my ex did a very poor job of looking after my son’s welfare. She then raised her voice to an angry pitch and told me I should stop nursing my son so that he could spend more time with his father. Once again she didn’t realize that at that stage of my son’s life he nursed for comfort more than nourishment. The nursing had zero impact on how much time he could spend with his father.

I didn’t tell her all of this. I simply explained that I was the one who got to make the decisions about my life. She had asked me earlier in the conversation why my plant was looking so amazingly healthy. I explained that I had soaked the natural, cloth, menstrual pads I had taken to wearing recently in a container of water before I laundered them. I had read how primitive women “fed” their menstrual blood back to the plants of the earth. I tried watering my plant with the soaking water. The plant had been dying. It was now robust.

She shouted, “I don’t even know who you are anymore, Cinse. You’re putting your period on a plant and you’re keeping your son from his father.” I knew the second thing wasn’t true. I also knew there was no convincing her of the actual truth. But the most important thing I knew was that I knew who I was, even if she didn’t.

Cinse Bonino
2023