I bought a new coat this week,
To say the feedback was functional would be an overstatement.
“Warm”, “cosy” were the comments,
Not beautiful,
Fashion-forward,
Not even a ‘nice’.

I wore it on my walk last night in fact,
When I went to the shop for my go-to stir fry veggie mix,
My 5-minute meal when I have no time to cook,
Ram it with some quick fried tofu and a microwave rice,
Bobs your uncle,
Fanny’s your aunt.

Except when I went to the shop,
They’d sold out of the veggies,
And instead,
I left gleefully with a Lindt bunny and a pack of hot cross buns,
And a large smile on my face.

Because to say I’m haemorrhaging this month is an understatement,
It’s like in your 30s the universe makes your period 100x worse,
I swear it’s saying, ‘reproduce god dammit’,
I’ll make you cramp like you’re in labour,
Swell to the size of pregnancy,
And bleed until you’re surprised to still be standing.

You know what you need at these times?
A ginormous creamy Lindt bunny.

Of course, a disclaimer here,
Is that I only decapitated Peter and ate his head,
I only eat ass on the weekend, after all.

I also got some passive aggressive trolling this week from some friends,
Which interestingly just made me squirm for them,
As opposed to the desired (I think?) embarrassment for myself,
Ourselves in this case.

It was all just a bit… Childish.

I mused on my walk home with Peter,
That honestly,
Despite losing half my body weight in blood,
Being unable to fit half my jeans right now,
And despite having an apparent woeful fashion sense,
I really, truly,
Don’t care.

Because look how happy I am in my blanket coat,

It feels like a cocoon of safety,
Like I’m walking the streets in a duvet,
And if my anti-sexual assault coat taught us anything,
It’s that safety never gets old,
Even when ugly.

Because my body is so healthy and safe,
The fluctuating weight is a result of hormones and a focus on fertility,
Because what other people think of me is none of my business,
And is utterly their prerogative.

I am so content with the way I choose to live my life,
The way my body allows me to thrive,
That on the whole,
I’ve lost all f*cks,
And I’ve come to the conclusion that I gave most of them away in my 20s.

Rest assured,

There’s a couple of stragglers hanging around,
Not in these coat pockets let me tell you,
But if I could pocket one feeling of my 30s and give it to my younger self,
And keep it for my older self,
It would be this.

The main impact that other people’s perceptions have on you are from the weighting that you give them,
Not from their reality.

It’s naïve to say that no one cares about what you eat,
Wear,
Or do,
But it’s not overly simplistic to say you have a choice whether to let it wash over you,
Or to internalise it, ruminate on it and let it drag you down.

There’s a societal shaming of female aging,
We’re given products to slow it,
Creams to blur it out,
As men our age date those 10 years our junior in fear of being demasculinised,
By the very power that comes with said blurring out of our wrinkles.

But honestly,
Aside from the litres of blood loss every month,
I can tell you that in your 30s at least,
You lose the most weight you’ve ever lost,
And that’s the weighting of other people’s irrelevant opinions,
And it’s fucking great.

Stop caring.
Live for yourself.