Denial

In the most typical method of birth control, one pill a day is taken for 21 days, and then life is dictated by Aunt Flo some time in the next 7 days; the phase of a woman's life that has always come and gone as it pleased can now be fully controlled from every 28 days to every four months, until it can no longer be put off. The same can be said about going through a transitional phase in life; we know it's coming, but we choose not to think or do anything about it until it's ready to slam into our faces and we have no choice but to deal with it. But it's how we deal with it that makes a difference: we either sedate ourselves emotionally so that we don't end up freaking out and bawling our eyes out, or... well, we end up freaking out and bawling our eyes out.

The emotional sedation (more commonly thought of as 'denial'), however, could end up being a little more difficult to deal with. At least, the side effects of it. Deep down we're so overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done that we block out all thoughts and feelings and concentrate (perhaps a little too hard) on the task at hand, and in the end, when the transition has been made, the reality of it finally dawns on us and we realize that we never knew how to deal with it in the first place.

When we get that feeling that something doesn't seem quite right, and we think and think about it but still can't figure out exactly what the problem is, some might say, "It'll hit me eventually." Obliviousness notwithstanding, is it also possible that somewhere (extremely) deep in our subconscious, we secretly know what the problem is, but our refusal to accept it -- and disinclination towards dealing with it -- has us scraping the barrel for something else to pin the problem to? And if we're denying the problem, are we denying it because we wish we didn't feel this way, or because we wish we didn't have to deal with it?