My body has always been unpredictable when it comes to getting my period. In the week leading up to it my temperature is sure to fluctuate with a mind of its own, causing me to half undress when arriving at places. My nipples always swell up and jut out as if they are showing me the way. There is a sudden shift in the weight of my body, that seems to be linked to the changing moods that come with it.

With all these fluctuations there is sometimes a grounding too- a surrendering to my body's internal anchor, pulling me this way and that. Like driftwood on a changing tide. 

Sometimes I feel suddenly light and energised, caught in a breeze I manage to ride. I feel an ascension as my energy rises and my body is weightless and malleable like a balloon. 

Other times I feel this lack of attachment, as though I am looking in on myself, through the window. I morph through phases of feeling - focused and steady or cloudy and hazed. Sometimes a deadweight feeling takes over me, gravity feels heavier, I am stuck to the floor. 

I was on the mini pill for around 5 years before coming off. After being on it for so long I felt it was numbing me, and my sensation to things - the natural wave of hormonal changes lost and dulled. I realised I was yearning for this fluctuation of mood that comes with having a period. The chemicals inside me rising and falling, patterns changing as I drink up and swallow sleep, my body moving through states of transition.
Images & text by Hattie Hambridge
Deadweight or The Unbearabe Lightness of Being on my Period
