I’m rarely hormonal.  I can be stressed, for certain, but that’s stress, not hormones. Every now and then someone in my family can sense that I have my spot.  My telltales aren’t acne or cramps, but it’s pretty easy to spot when I have my spot.

See, with Lea, I always know when she has it (because she tells the postman, her fishmonger,and any receptionist or coworker or, well, anyone).  I also know because to speak with her you’d assume she’d spent the day shopping in cheap clothing stores that make you itch and sneeze, wearing a bulky overcoat, her pits stained, wiping her upper lip, pinning the "I’m growing them out!  So, shut it already!" bangs up behind a small barette. She acts like she’s on a diet.  Impatient, irritable, frustrated, and sweating.  Then she says, "the only thing that’ll fix this is a good steak."  She craves it.  I never get cravings for steak.  Not even once in the nine years I was a vegetarian.

Here’s what I do get: softer.  It’s not my skin or hair but my… my me.  My me gets softer, the person I am kinda gives up a little. It’s almost as if I somehow say, "I think I’m going to sit this one out."  I stop making decisions, stop pushing, stop the to-do lists, the worrying, and I just think.  A recharge.  The thing is, I really only get this hormonal, probably, four or five times a year, and it feels the most like me.  Because the fight in me is too tired, and what’s left is what’s real. 

I feel everything more and want to discuss it.  And then, inevitably, Phil gets to deal with it.  That emotional me.  But I don’t see it as "deal with."  You know what?  He’s fucking lucky enough to get to see that part of me, the raw me, who really means it.  Who feels it more, who might not be rational, who might be needy.  And he should take those times and savor them.  It’s the most open I can be, like after a night of drunk sex, where you don’t think–you just say what you feel and don’t worry about how it sounds or what he’ll think.  And you feel like you couldn’t be closer to anyone, and feel alive and so thankful for the moment and your life.  Except I know he’s sitting there wishing I wasn’t so emotional.  So my mood swings back to closed.  And I get annoyed that he doesn’t see how beautiful that vulnerability can be.  He thinks "see spot run" and wants to run along with it.  "I’m a guy.  I just want to go to sleep after sex," is what he’s thinking.  And then I’m bitter and think, "I’m a girl, and I want to be adored like you used to, to be kissed passionately on the street, to be loved from the top of a park bench.  I want you to be mad about me, not always mad at me for something I didn’t do your way."  And then I just go back to feeling sad, thinking, you just had a window to be with my most authentic self.  The most real I can be, and you don’t seem to want any part of her.  Then you say, "I love you, goodnight."  And you fall asleep, and I sit thinking about things like this.  How easy it is to point at spots.