Dear Aunt Flo (a goodbye letter)

A collection of my least favorite relatives, as well as one I wish came around more often

Remember Flo from the sitcom Alice? I liked her hard-livin’, straigh-talkin’ character. This letter is definitely not addressed to THAT Flo.

Equally likeable, this Flo from the insurance commercials is also NOT the Flo in question.

Dear Aunt Flo,

It has been a year since your last visit. Those who know you and your habits predict that this year of neglect means you have rejected me altogether. I can’t say I will mourn your departure.

The first time you came was completely without warning. I was ten years old, in the fifth grade, and you had the audacity to show up at my school. To say I was not expecting you is an understatement—I had never even heard of you. I just knew that something felt off down there. I asked my teacher, Mrs. Somers, who I didn’t like and I’m pretty sure didn’t like me either, if I could please visit the restroom down the hall. When I got there, I found you. But you didn’t even have the decency to introduce yourself. You were just there, in all your gory glory. This terrified me, of course, and prompted me to think I must be dying, or some other equally unnerving fate.

It’s not like I was going to ask Mrs. Somers for help. She still hadn’t forgiven me for sneaking into the classroom during recess and disassembling that infuriating bell she kept on her desk. Ding, ding. “Class, your attention, please.” Ding, ding.

I couldn’t ask any of the other kids around me. What would I say? “I think something is dreadfully wrong with me, but I can’t show it to you or even tell you about it because it’s . . . well . . . private.”

No. There was nothing I could do but tie my sweatshirt around my waist, walk stiffly the rest of the day, and try not to panic. Even when I arrived home, I didn’t tell anyone at first. It was personal, and embarrassing, and terrifying. Your presence wouldn’t go away, though. It only seemed to get worse. I eventually confided in my mother, who explained you and your ways to me. At least I wasn’t frightened anymore, but the resentment never went away.

You visited me faithfully every month after that, often for a whole week or more at a time. I learned to recognize your approach. Sometimes your visits only annoyed me, making me a little irritable and slightly uncomfortable. Most of the time, though, you left me in a foul mood and emotionally unstable, with unpredictable waves of pain. Occasionally, your visits even left me curled up in a ball, writhing and whimpering, like that time we were at a hotel in Las Vegas, and I was in such agony that I couldn’t leave the bed to go downstairs to enjoy that enormous, beautiful buffet. I’m still a little bitter about that one. Some women have pain that bad or worse every single time! I shudder to imagine it.

I remember the time you came along—uninvited, of course—on a family vacation to visit my grandparents in Montana. Grandpa planned to take us grandkids on a camping trip up into the mountains. We would explore the remains of an old cabin he’d found, pan for gold, fish for our supper, sleep in a tent, and pick wild berries to add to our pancakes. What an opportunity for an outdoorsy kid like me! But the thought of bringing YOU into the wilderness and finding ways to hide the evidence of your presence for days on end without any modern conveniences sent me into a panic. I dropped out—said I wasn’t interested in the camping trip—then went up the back hill alone to cry.

As a woman in my late 20s, I recall trying to get pregnant, hoping and praying, only to see you, right on schedule every month—eighteen months in a row. I did eventually get pregnant, by the way, which is more than I can say for some of my dear friends who wanted to but were disappointed by your regular, or even irregular, visits—again and again and again. How bitter your presence—and eventually your absence—must be for those women.

Really, nobody likes you. We can blame it on a curse; we can blame it on simple physiological componentry; we can blame it on all sorts of things, but I’m pretty sure you have been universally hated throughout human history. Perhaps there are some cultures that celebrate your first arrival, but after that, you are just a pain in the a . . . bdomen. In addition to the mental and physical distress you put us through, you disrupt our activities, from such minor things like playing in the water to more life-altering things like—in some places—causing girls to miss nearly a week of school each month. You are the Great Disruptor, it seems.

There aren’t many in this world that I truly dislike, Aunt Flo, but YOU are on the short list.

In recent years prior to September 2022—the last time you showed up—your visits became sporadic and with none of the usual warning signs I had grown to anticipate. Sometimes you would turn up suddenly and stay only a few days but wreak havoc like a stiff westerly wind that spins itself into a dust devil across the flat terrain. Other times, you would let yourself in quietly and then linger, like the raspy cough leftover from a bad cold, for two to three weeks past your typical exit date. I would go several months between visits but had to keep supplies on hand at all times anyway, never sure when you might waltz back in the door.

But now, after I put up with your unwelcome visits for forty-something years, you have exited my life just as mysteriously as you first entered. As some sort of deranged parting gift, however, you seem to have passed along my contact information to a handful of other extended family members I had no interest in ever meeting.

Back in 2015, just as you began acting so strangely, I got the first of many (MANY) visits from your supervillain brother disguised as a comedian, Uncle Peter the Heater. Although his visits have been occasionally helpful—like that long stretch one winter when I was teaching in an unheated classroom—visits from Uncle Pete are generally unwelcome. He shows up at the most inopportune times, and although he rarely visits for more than three or four minutes at a time, his presence can be so completely overwhelming for those minutes that it is difficult to maintain my composure. Joker that he is, I’m sure he thinks this is hilarious.

Uncle Peter the Heater is not this Joker but is equally as evil.

I have not yet resorted to carrying one of those little battery-operated fans on a necklace, but I have learned to forego turtlenecks in favor of V-necks. To his credit, this is probably just good fashion sense, anyway, so for that ONE thing, I guess I am grateful.

When Uncle Pete shows up at night, however, he comes with none of the mischievous good humor of his daytime visits. A nighttime visit from Uncle Pete—and on most nights, there are several—is not only disruptive to a woman’s sleep needs, but it can also be downright messy. Anyone who has had a particularly intense visit from him can attest to the sweaty pajamas and bedsheets that can result. Yuck. Some mornings I awake feeling more exhausted than when I went to bed. Thanks a lot, Aunt Flo, for sending me Uncle Pete.

And what is the deal with sending Uncle Arthur Itis? I was doing just fine without him and his constant achy-breaky song and dance. That guy has really slowed me down for the last several months. I am trying to assist my husband as we build out this expedition vehicle—a very physical task—and Uncle Arthur swings by, leaving my hands stiff, achy, and weak. It seems like everything I want or need to do, including writing, requires my hands. I am not a fan.

Not THIS Arthur. Uncle Arthur Itis. He’s decidedly less cheerful.

And when Uncle Arthur shows up with Uncle Peter—tag-teaming like an outlandish pair of spandex-clad wrestlers—it is hard to get much sleep at all. Then when I finally get up in the morning, exhausted, I find you’ve sent your other henchmen—Sleepy, Dopey, and Grumpy, to visit for the day. Sometimes, particularly when my allergies act up and I am sneezing all the time, I feel like I am living with the entire line-up of diminutive sidekicks, a fun-size legion trying to take over my body like some sort of Disney zombie apocalypse.

Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, Sneezy, Bashful, Happy, and Doc. All at once. Every day.

This is no way to win friends and influence people, Aunt Flo.

And one more thing: what did you tell Aunt Libby about me? Lately, she’s been avoiding me like I’m trying to contact her about her extended car warranty. You know what I’m talking about. She hardly ever comes around anymore—and she is the one member of your weird little family who I actually liked. She does stop by occasionally, and every visit is a real treat, but I used to enjoy her presence much more frequently. If you happen to see Aunt Libby—and if you have any compassion in your permafrost heart at all—you could tell her I miss her. My husband misses her, too.

I guess that’s all. This letter turned out to be longer than I expected, but I had a lot to say. Goodbye and good riddance to you, Aunt Flo. It’s officially been a whole year since we’ve seen each other, and I definitely haven’t missed you. Tell your other siblings—except Aunt Libby—to buzz off. Certainly, they can find better things to do than pester my friends and me.

Sincerely,

Sherry

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If any of this resonates with you, friend, and you would like to add your name and/or any further amendments to this letter, please do so in the comments. I will see that Aunt Flo gets the message.

And speaking of goodbyes, next Tuesday I will be talking about the long and complex process of saying farewell to our lives as normal Americans. We haven’t yet found a playbook to follow, although we have discovered a few role models—both from ancient and modern times. Setting out into the unknown as long-term nomads looks quite different for midlife folks like us than it does for short-term twenty-somethings. They are just looking to have a little fun before the inevitable “settling down.” We already settled down. Why are we giving that hard-earned stability away?

If you haven’t yet subscribed, you might want to scroll down and do that now, so you don’t forget to check next week’s story. Or is it just me that is so forgetful these days?

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