Once a month PMS comes to me without any warning. Sure, I could look up in the sky and notice that the moon is nowhere to be found. But I am never prepared for how intense I get at this time of the month. I get extremely serious and fixated on a problem, one that perhaps on any other time of the month I wouldn’t have considered an issue at all. I talk incessantly about it, picking at it, demanding that Jay listen to me and see my point, then get mad when he doesn’t see it my way or worse, makes light of it.

Jay never understood this. In fairness to him, I didn’t understand it either, so I couldn’t very well explain how I feel to him. He recognizes the devil when it rears its grumpy head, but has never known how to tame the wild beast. In fact he does the worst thing anyone could ever do when confronted with me on PMS: he laughs and says, “Why don’t you change your tampon?”

It is one thing to feel like I have no one to turn to when I’m feeling blue. It’s another to be made to feel like my concerns have no merit just because it was brought up during the “dark” time of the month.

I’m a bit of a procrastinator and a laid back island girl. Perhaps the kitchen floor needs retiling, or the business needs to be restructured. PMS gives me super-intense energy, that fed up kind of attitude that gets things done. It’s probably why menstruation is considered the “goddess flow,” not only because it is tied to fertility and life-creation, but also because women get more energized as creative/destructive beings. We focus on dissatisfaction in our life and demand change.

I said to Jay, “When I have this much pent up energy, wouldn’t you rather I was tearing linoleum off the kitchen floor than obsessing over your use of the word tampon?” My advice to men who are faced with PMS-ing women is this: Do not draw attention to yourself. Let her rant, let her cry, say “I’m here for you, babe,” but not much more. She’ll figure out what she needs to do and before you know it, life is better for everyone.