No. I wasn’t nervous. I have severe menstrual cramps and my birthday gift from nature was the onset of my period.

Men and women, open your ears. Periods are gross. I’m not going to sit here and make pretend they are beautiful; they are an abomination excreted from the genital area.

But the pain I experience from them has taught me one thing: I can be a badass.

You see the entire 100 question test I felt like Wolverine was turning his bladed fists in my stomach, repeatedly. By question 50 I was having cold chills. Question 75 brought on room spinning dizzy spells. Question 99 led to me starting to gag.

Question 99 was bubbled in and I dropped my pencil and ran out of the room to the nearest bathroom and did the aforementioned act of oral expulsion.

I finished that. Took my shirt off and stood in front of a window for about 5 minutes trying to cool down from a fever-like sweat.

I then put my dressing back on, winked in the mirror, and went back into class bubbled in question 100 and turned in the test.

Periods are gross. This story on many levels is gross. I get that menstruation is important to my physiological nature, but I’m still always going to hate having it. I get you didn’t need to hear the occurrences of my birthday, May 12th, 2016.

But my period has shown me today, that through the most literal gut-wrenching pain, I can still get shit done.

And so can you. Even if you don’t bleed once a month.