06/08/2026
☕️ Morning Coffee Thoughts
I saw a dad on Instagram prepping iron-rich foods for his daughter to help offset the drop during her cycle. Warm water bottles every night for cramps and sleep. Men in other cultures are more attuned to women's care than many of us were ever taught to be.
Ancient Egyptian men took time off work when their wives were menstruating. Other cultures built space around the natural rhythm of a woman's body and mind — cyclical rest, real nourishment, intentional recovery. I imagine women in those cultures had more of a voice. And because they had a voice, their actual experience was honored.
For most of us — and our mothers, and their mothers before them — the message was quieter and far less kind: grin and bear it. You'll feel sick, exhausted, emotional, and untethered. But life goes on. Keep moving. And if the frustration boils over? Eye rolls. Must be that time of month. Pity at best.
For something you cannot control — embedded in a system that never stopped to ask how to actually support you through it. Just mask the symptoms and encourage girls to act like nothing is happening.
TCM has extensive protocols built around the female cycle. Deep, specific, passed-down knowledge. I have no doubt every culture once had this. Ours lost it, or it got pushed out. And now here I am at 40, finally learning how to work with my body — and having to explain my own reality to my husband from scratch.
40 is freeing. You run out of f***s to give, and that's its own kind of power.
But what about the young girls who give all the f***s? For whom this is brand new and overwhelming and met with silence?
I blame no one. No one was taught differently. You can't offer what you were never given.
I just think it could be better. And I'm genuinely grateful for social media's ability to connect women across cultures — because some of ours have lost the thread on women's health entirely.
The biology that makes life possible is the system we've left to fend for itself.
We've poured billions into synthetic systems that generate profit.
The ones that generate people? That's a you problem.
