Moody Blues and Pinks

When I was about eleven -- and approaching the end of my brief career as a technically proficient but far from gifted pianist -- my piano teacher attributed my particularly foul mood one day to hormones. She's probably getting her period, she whispered to my mother, turning her head so I wouldn't hear. Period. The word was always whispered. Like cancer. Just another curse, always whispered, as if saying it out loud made it contagious.

As it turned out, I was light years away from getting my period that day. I was, quite simply, a moody bitch. My ex-husband used to refer to it as PMS -- permanent menstrual syndrome -- back when he still thought I had some redeeming qualities. My gynecologist, who generally only sees me annually  and can tolerate my evil side because he has an advanced degree and understands that my occasional nastiness is totally within the realm of normal, has been assuring me for several years that when menopause finally turns me into a raging lunatic he can prescribe some magic bullets to adjust the hormones. Not as effective as the bullets my husband had in mind, no doubt, but nice to know there's a back-up plan.

I have yet to call upon bullets of any caliber; my mood swings -- documented as they have been since I was eleven -- are as familiar as an old shoe, as much a part of me as my fear of spiders and the slightly off center bump on my nose. And, as I read recently, there is good science to support my own vacillations and those of my ilk (i.e. women). According to a highly credentialed psychiatrist -- and I base this assessment upon her many years of practice, her impeccable grammar, and her acceptance for publication in the esteemed New York Times -- women are hard wired to be moody. Chemically, hormonally, physiologically, Adam's rib made us this way. It's why we can nurture our young and protect them the way nobody else can; it is why we can feel joy as deeply as we feel pain, and it is why we are capable of dealing with the challenges life throws our way.

Nevertheless, physicians tend to prescribe anti-depression and anti-anxiety pills for women far more often than they do for men. For years, they have medicated our moods as if they are a disease rather than a force of nature. The pills make us calmer, or more content, but they can also make us a little bit numb. When I am a raging bitch, the heavy artillery may seem like a good idea, but if it means never experiencing unadulterated happiness I am willing to forego numbness and take my chances.

It's no different, I think, from putting up with winter in Chicago. I think I would die of boredom if I woke to clement weather every day. A little dreariness helps me to appreciate even a small peek of sunshine. They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. I have found that not to always be true, but I love surprises, or at least a little unpredictability. Seasons, genders, hormonal fluctuations, times of life -- the world needs yins for all its yangs.

I like to think of March as neither a lion nor a lamb but, rather, as a lioness. One day fierce and infuriating, the next soothing and reassuring, the thing that lets us know everything will soon be all right. Just like a woman.