My Luteal Phase + a Joan Didion Quote Walk Into a Bar

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Hi friend, if you're new here, welcome to Girlhood — the group chat we should have had all along. This week, we're grieving a Portugal trip that wasn't meant to be, finding out what it actually looks like to build a village, cheering on a cervical cancer screening update that finally doesn't require stirrups, and doing the math on how many good weeks we actually get per month (spoiler: not many). Grab a beverage and settle in.

✈️ The Trip We Didn't Take

My husband and I were supposed to be in Portugal this week. Our friends were getting married, we had the tickets booked, and then his new job made it impossible to go. I have a lot of feelings about that (which I will not fully get into here), but I will say: it's been an emotional week.

I'm also in my luteal phase, which is doing absolutely nothing to help.

The harder part is that most of the people on that trip are in our lives because of Lisa, our friend who died almost six years ago at 31. She loved to travel more than anyone I've ever known. Going would have been bittersweet in the specific way only grief can pull off: the thing that hurts and feels right at exactly the same time.

Instead, we went upstate for the weekend, which, genuinely, was not bad. We ate well, hiked, drank good wine, and wandered into a little bookstore bar called The Spotty Dog, where I picked up a collection of Joan Didion's writing and spent a very peaceful hour just reading.

But then this week arrived — wedding photos on my phone, answering emails I can barely focus on, full awareness that I am not in Portugal — and I keep coming back to the same thing: we should have gone. There will always be another work conflict. There will not always be that group of people, in that place, for that reason.

Didion said: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear."

I think I already knew. I just needed to write it down.

🔍 Ask Clara: Why do I feel so much more emotional during my luteal phase?

 🩺 The New Way to Screen for Cervical Cancer (No Stirrups Required)

In February, I was lying on the exam table at my annual, underwear tucked under my jeans on the chair in that way that makes absolutely no sense, catching up with my very pregnant OB about life with three kids, while she was looking directly into my vagina. The multitasking alone deserves some kind of award.

I love my doctor, and I love that I have one, which is something I'm increasingly aware of — and exactly why this news felt worth paying attention to.

ACOG just updated its cervical cancer screening guidance to include self-collection for high-risk HPV testing, meaning women between 30 and 65 can now use a swab to collect their own vaginal sample (no stirrups, no speculum, no pelvic exam required). You don't even have to find your cervix. The sample gets sent to a lab, and results come back within a week or two. Teal Health has been doing this at-home version for a while now, and it's exactly the kind of option this moment is calling for.

Nearly half of U.S. counties don't have a single OB/GYN, which means for a lot of women, getting to a clinic at all isn't a given. Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable cancers we have, but it's still killing women, largely because screening requires access that not everyone has.

Self-collection doesn't fix the underlying problem, but it does mean that the woman who can't get an appointment, can't take a day off, or lives an hour from the nearest clinic has one fewer barrier between her and information that could save her life.

The underwear-on-the-chair situation isn't going anywhere, but at least more women get a shot at the thing that actually matters.

🔍 Ask Clara: How often should I get a Pap smear or HPV test?

📅 Apparently, There's Only One Good Week Per Month

I still can't get over how often women with regular cycles get their periods. I'm apparently one of them now: after years of cycles that showed up whenever they felt like it, a predictable 33-day rotation remains genuinely shocking to me.

And now that I'm actually living it month after month, I completely understand what people mean when they say there's maybe one good week where you actually feel like yourself. One. The rest is just managing.

The week before my period, my ADHD is louder, my patience is thinner, and I'm bloated in a way that makes me want to live in my husband's sweatpants. Nothing falls apart, nothing is catastrophic, everything is just slightly harder than it needs to be, and I have about 40% less tolerance for all of it.

So when I came across Sanctiva for Her, I was genuinely curious. It's a new, plant-based, drug-free option for period aches and emotional imbalance: gummies made with hemp-derived cannabinoids (CBD, CBG, and CBC) plus adaptogens and botanical extracts, designed to be absorbed quickly and work fast, with no THC and no drowsiness.

As someone who spent the entirety of my 20s not ovulating at all, I'm still adjusting to the reality that this is just monthly life now, which makes anything that promises real relief for the other three weeks very worth knowing about. For women 21+, you can find Sanctiva for Her at getsanctiva.com.

🔍 Ask Clara: What helps with PMS symptoms like bloating and mood swings?

🤝 The Village Doesn’t Build Itself

"Everyone wants a village, but no one wants to be a villager." I keep seeing that on social media, and every time it stops me, probably because it's true in a way that's a little uncomfortable.

I grew up in a big Italian family, which means I didn't have to think about community — it just showed up (usually with food and opinions), whether you asked for it or not. Sunday dinners weren't optional, neither was knowing your cousins' business, and a goodbye that should have taken five minutes somehow always took forty-five. The village wasn't a concept; it was just Tuesday.

So when I put my kids in a new school this year, I understood what I was actually signing up for: not just carpool logistics and classroom emails, but the slower, less convenient work of becoming someone's people. Staying at the birthday party instead of running errands, making the conversation real instead of keeping it pleasant, saying yes to the panel on a weeknight when the couch is right there.

Last week, I moderated a Resolve event for National Infertility Awareness Week, and the room was full of people doing exactly that — showing up in person, which still feels like a small act of defiance these days, for a conversation that's heavy and vulnerable and not always easy to walk into. Some were just starting out, some were in the thick of it, and some were already on the other side and came anyway, for whoever happened to be sitting next to them. That's the villager.

The villager isn't the person with the most time or the most energy. It's the person who shows up anyway, says the true thing first, and makes it a little easier for everyone else to follow. Last week, in that room, there were a lot of them.

xo,
Kristyn

🔍 Ask Clara: How do I find my village as a mom?

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