Last month, I packed my bags and got on an airplane, then got off it and drove up (or rather got driven up) into the hills. There was the cool, crisp air of higher altitudes, the breath taking blue-green foliage of dense forests, and the romantic thick, white mists of the mountains.

Even though I had been craving a vacation for years and planning one for months, I still wasn't ready. The prison that my mind had become over the years, just made it that much harder for me to comfortably step out of my zone. I was excited about the trip but I still woke up that morning thinking I don't want to go. I was just scared. Plain and simple.

I went anyway, the ink on my divorce papers not yet dry, the tears in my heart still uncried. I remember how I felt that day. I guess it's not something you forget easily. But I didn't talk to anyone about it and I probably never will. I wasn't prepared for a lot of things that day. Especially not for people saying Congratulations! No matter what happens and what you know or what you think you know about a person's marriage ending, you don't ever say Congratulations! It doesn't matter how well meaning your words are. At first I was shocked and numbed, then I just smiled and finally started saying thank you. But deep down, I wondered what drove people to actually say that.

So I was nervous about what to expect on my first holiday alone and totally unprepared for what was to come. But the moment I entered the place and stepped out of the car, I could feel 20 or 30 years of baggage just melting away. I didn't care anymore where I'd been or where I thought I was heading. I found myself letting go of everything and floating into a dream like state. For the first time I felt like I actually belonged somewhere, bizarre as it sounds. I watched myself blossoming into the person I've always wanted to be. And I did not cry. Not because I didn't want to, but because there were just no more tears left and more importantly, nothing left to cry about. But I didn't know that yet.

So everyday I'd expect to have an outburst at a most inappropriate or inopportune moment. It's not even like I was sitting and thinking about the sorrows of the past. I just didn't have the time or the inclination. Still, I expected there to be some residual feelings there that would need to be let out at some point. One day I sat at the bamboo hut above the river, my favourite spot, and asked myself how I was feeling. I thought about the events of the past couple of years and all the people involved. Strangely, I couldn't relate to them anymore and felt like I was thinking about the stories of someone else's life and not mine.

Amost two weeks had gone by since I'd been there and I could see myself changing in ways I had only dreamed about. Then I woke up one morning, feeling a bit strange. I walked down to the river to meditate to the sounds of the water gushing by. As I sat there, I felt a wave of emotion slowly building up inside me and I just wasn't prepared for it. Why now, after all this time? As I continued sitting there there I felt the feelings start to intensify. It was nothing or nobody in particular. Just a thick cloud of doom slowly descending upon me with no place to take cover. I could feel my nerves pop, my muscles tighten and fists start to clench.

I walked back to my room and reached for the only drug I've known to work on me - music. Plugged into my iPod, looked at the red tiled floor on my balcony and listened as the sounds streamed into my ears.

After the first few lines had been sung, I had begun to lose feeling in my extremities and gain moistness inside my eyes. I kicked off my shoes, went into the cottage and shut the big wooden door. I looked at the sofa that I had not sat upon even once since I'd gotten there and sunk into it's surprisingly comfortable depths. The curtains were drawn and through hazy eyes I could see the light filter through. The warm glow of orange and red. And then they came.

The tears that had long since been overdue. Fast and furious, but devoid of any precise feelings that I could actually associate them with. I turned the volume on the iPod up as the silents sobs and sniffles turned into loud cries and moans. Someone knocked on the door and I froze for a second. Talk about timing! I sat still and hoped that whoever it was would go away. The knocking continued so I got up and peeked out through the curtains. It was housekeeping. Come back later, please! They left, and I thought I was done with the tears. No.

So I cried some more, cried my heart out actually, and wondered where all those tears were coming from. I'm not sure how much time had passed but eventually I got up and went into the bathroom to wash my face. Since I was in there anyway, I decided to empty my bladder as well. Pulled down my pants, sat on the pot and there it was, staring me right in the face. I finally had the answer for why I had spent the entire morning sobbing for no apparent reason - I had my period!
So, you still think PMS is a myth?