THE OPT OUT
THE OPT OUT
#10. Will my body never take the hint?
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#10. Will my body never take the hint?

Are we ready for a halfway point Zoom happy hour or no?
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Hey! This is issue #10 of the Sheila Heti Summer Slow Read, a five month journey through the novel Motherhood. New episodes drop every Sunday from May-September, 20 issues in total. If you want to start at the beginning or read more about what the hell we’re doing here, head on over to issue #1.

It’s July(!?) and this is issue #10, which means we have officially reached the halfway point of the Sheila Heti Summer Slow Read. Wowee! If you’re on this journey book club style, that means we’re now through the first half of the book (137 pages). Ta da! Here’s the page breakdown again for any overachievers who want to keep up in real time:

MAY: 1-44
JUNE: 47-137
JULY: 141-164
AUGUST: 167-201
SEPTEMBER: 205-284

Today is my only ~solo issue~ of the series because, understandably, no one really wanted to talk about periods, blood, and body stuff with me, lol. This episode is short and you may want to skip it honestly if listening to me gossip about my own body stuff and talk a bit about the big, beautiful disaster bill isn’t for you, although I promise to keep it pretty PG. Totally respect that. Take your sanity where you can find it.

It’s just me and you today, so I’d love to hear from you – how are you doing with Motherhood so far? Are you caught up? I know summer is the busiest (hence why this is a slow read in the first place!) but I’d love a status report from anyone who is willing to share. I was going to suggest maybe doing a group Zoom happy hour to check in later this month, but I have no idea where everyone is in the series and if anyone would even be ready for that. Let me know??

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#10. Will my body never take the hint? (pages 151-152)

“You can become accustomed to anything in this life, but blood coming out of your vagina once a month is nothing. I think, Isn’t it stupid my body did this again? Will it never learn? Will it never take the hint? No, it replies: Will you never take the hint? If I paid more attention to the bleeding, maybe I would. But I don’t: I deal with it, and it goes. Will I miss it one day, once it’s gone for good? Why is my body doing this inside me every month, and how many opportunities could I miss? How stupid am I really? How little I care for what it wants. How neglected and abandoned is this little animal inside me that is doing its work so diligently and well – this tiny uterus, these mushy ovaries, these fallopian tubes and my brain. It has no idea I need nothing from it. It just keeps on working. If only I could speak to it and tell it to stop. Who is it doing all this for, if not for me? And what do I do for it? I mop up its blood. Then I mop it up again. I never feel grateful. I never give a single thought to each expectant egg – hopeful when ovulating, then saddened when I don’t get pregnant and it’s released from my body, confused as a girl who no one calls, who no boy ever asks out, who no one ever invites to a party. Then one day, the school finds out: She’s dead. What? That girl we all ignored? Yes.

Miles once told me that I bleed less on my period than any other woman he’s been with. With other women, whenever they would have sex during her period, the blood would be halfway up his belly and halfway down his thighs. With me, there’s hardly a spot. I wonder if this means I have a very small uterus, I said, the one time he told me this. He just shrugged. To him, it didn’t mean anything. Yet for an hour after, I hung suspended between the thought that I must be a truly refined woman to bleed much less, and I must not be much of a woman at all.” – Sheila Heti, Motherhood

Actual footage of the story I tell you about in today’s episode

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