Our bodies, ourselves... at 36

I don't normally write about my vagina but I just had 3 shots of espresso and am feeling a little jazzy so why not?

If you're getting excited, don't, I'm about to write about menstruation. Calm down.

If you don't want to read about menstruation, now is a good time to navigate away!

OK, I'm hanging at my friend's house and somehow we started talking diva cups. These are the menstrual cups the hippies use to be environmentally friendly and up in their own business. I thought about shifting gears as a teenager but just couldn't get there mentally. Seemed like a lot of disasters waiting to happen. I'm a long-time pad-user. Simple, old-fashioned, gets the job done. (And leaves my sheets looking like a murder scene, but you can't win them all.)

My friend says that her Mom caught a diva cup sale at Acme. Yup! She bought 10 diva cups for my friend to give to all her nearest and dearest! Somehow, my friend and her Mom are the diva cup fairies. Or Oprah. All of the sudden I'm the proud owner of my first diva cup. At age 36.

I put it on my dresser. The next morning I gazed curiously at the packaging. I noticed on the side that there were options for two sizes. Size A is for those under 30 or who haven't had children. Size B, what I was holding, was for those OVER 30 or who had birthed children.

Wait wait wait!

Even if I haven't had kids my vag is stretching just cause I'm old?! That's a THING?! I immediately texted my friend. "I'm the big size?!" I didn't even know to be stressed about this. And now I am.

Period still hadn't come so I had a few days to mull over my knew found size-phobia. Be vagina-stretch-positive. Whatever.

Then it happened. The magic day. It was a Sunday and I was lightly scheduled. I decided it was time. My friend had primed me to watch some YouTube videos. I asked her what to expect and she assured me it would only be ladies talking and not their parts.

I proceeded to spend an inordinately long time in the bathroom. I figured out how to fold the diva cup appropriately. Then came the moment. I was gonna do this. I squatted like they said, the diva cup is folded, and I insert. So far, on it. It's not the most comfortable thing but it's bearable. Then they tell you to turn a quarter so that as it opens it creates a seal. I'm like knuckles deep in myself. There is no room to turn. No an option.

So then I start feeling really good about my size. Maybe I am a size A after all! I tried to brag about that to Kevin-- I may have yelled through the house, "Yo Kevin! My shit is TIGHT!" He remained unimpressed.

I felt like I was 12 years old again on adventures with my changing body. I had successfully inserted the diva cup! I felt alarmingly aware of a cup in me. Just hanging out. Like more aware than I generally am of my cervix. More aware than I think I want to be.

I figured I should try to remove it. They say to push so the stem of the cup protrudes, grab the stem, and pull. I tried. Again, knuckles deep searching for the stem. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my Sunday. I'd just gotten a manicure too. There's that. This experience makes you look a bit like you murdered someone and then buried them.

My Aunt was suffering a hernia and she said part of inducing the hernia was pushing. I'm feeling really ambivalent about how much I want to push! Finally, I bear down and the stem emerges. It is slippery. I have to take a little toilet paper to use for traction on the stem. I finally get a good hold and pull and it does indeed come out.

A few things.

A) Pulling a cup out of your cervix feels like you're being slapped in the vagina.

B) Holy blood. I HAD NO IDEA. It may be a good idea for every woman to use a diva cup just to properly understand what our bodies are actually doing. I cannot believe I am alive. I am shocked. I felt omnipotent. And like I might need a nap and a lot of iron.

C) The cup does come out, miraculously, upright. It has something to do with the shape of women and God knows what else. The moon and cosmos? A howling wolf? No spills.

I gazed in awe at my goblet of blood. I poured it into the toilet and watched the color become diffuse. Weird performance art.

Then you're supposed to rinse the diva cup and start again.

I did the thing for one cycle and one cycle only. It does work. I mean, I was a newbie so I wore a pad just in case and there were a few spots but by and large, the diva cup does what it's meant to. The main reason why I let it go is it is TOO ROUGH to shove that thing up and down! Too much! I rested my head on the sink and thought, "why does everything go up there manageably and come out painfully?" And I have not given birth.

I felt, perhaps, too open about my experience. I literally shared at coffee shops and prior to my yoga class. And now on a blog. Every woman I met had her own stories. The woman fighting to get it out as a hot guy was coming over. The woman who enjoyed being knuckles deep in her own stuff. Those who had to resize post-baby. On and on.

I enjoyed the shared camaraderie of this weird experience. But I really felt abusive to my vagina as I shoved this thing up and down. Another thing that concerned me was that the flow was not flowing within me. It sat in the cup. The rubber was the thing moving. I don't know if this is true but it feels like the shedding running down the cervix might be some type of balancing agent. I started feeling itchy and I never feel itchy. Things generally run pretty smoothly down there. For lack of a better term, it felt like too much action... ha... disruption? It felt like I was missing some balance of the natural cleanse.

I decided I needed to revert to pads or something like them but I did appreciate decreasing landfill waste. I'd been attentive to Thinx and decided to get two pairs.

I have found my promised land.

Thinx are underwear pads. The whole thing is a pad. No leakage. No murder scenes. No knuckle deep in yourself (not my jam, apparently). You rinse them out, let them dry, and begin again.

The whole experience prompted me to think about how much money I spend on one-time use products and the waste involved. All things I was aware of but hadn't resolved. I'm going to let my body continue running unimpeded, self-cleansing, and self-regulating. The diva cup sits in her pretty pouch on a pretty shelf, never again to smack the shit out of my vagina.