Mar 31 2006
Because underneath it all, I’m really just a 13 year old girl…
The movie. Do you remember the movie? I saw it twice. The first time, it was shown to my girl scout troop by our leader. Shocked, shocked I was. My body was going to do WHAT? Grow hair WHERE? FEMININE PROTECTION???? I must have been about 9, I guess.
It was awful.
I had somewhat recovered from the initial shock when the nuns took all the 4th grade girls out of class and showed us another movie of the same sort. When we rejoined the boys, they had figured out what it was all about. THE movie. About it. You know, IT – our periods.
I’m sure we were all scarlet red knowing that the boys knew. They wanted to make JOKES about it. Sure, you can laugh about it when you have a high level of certainty it will never happen to you. None of the girls were laughing.
It wasn’t until a few years later that I started. That’s how we said it – no one wished to turn that into a more complete sentence. We all knew what it meant. Started.
“Did you hear? Pam started. Can you believe it? I heard that Peggy’s big sister didn’t start until, like, 8th grade. I totally don’t even want to start. I mean, once I do it will be, like, the rest of my life. I totally can wait. This one girl said her cramps were so bad she had to go to the hospital or something. I swear. After Carla started, she like went to 2nd base the next week thinking she was so grown up.” (2nd base was Frenching, you know, like with your TONGUE.)
The only thing scarier than STARTING was NOT STARTING. We were all totally terrified that we’d be the exception and it wouldn’t happen to us.
I started when I was 13.
I think I spent the next 5 years telling my friends “Quick, check the back of my skirt. Did I leak? I think I leaked.” That’s what we did in Catholic school – we walked around checking the backs of each others uniform skirts. We were all just waiting for the ultimate humiliation. We each had picked out what school we would make our parents transfer us to if such a horrendous, unthinkable thing was ever to happen.
It was a few months later during summer vacation when my friend Lisa suggested we go swimming.
“Swimming?” I asked uncertainly. “Are you sure you want to go SWIMMING? Maybe we could hang out at the park. Or go shopping.”
The problem was I hadn’t yet learned to use the right sort of protection suitable for SWIMMING. I knew the commercials showed the women swimming and skiing and doing back flips from balance beams, saying, without words “See? You can use our sort of feminine protection and still do EVERYTHING!”
I wasn’t convinced. I was downright skeptical.
Lisa was adamant we go swimming and so I locked myself into the bathroom and looked at the box. I read the instructions. It goes in there. IN there. IN. I was skeptical. I took out the package insert and read it, in both English and Spanish (not that I knew any Spanish… I mean, Dora hadn’t even been born yet then). The instructions in the box were consistent – IN. This thing was meant to go IN.
Lisa was banging on the door. “Come on. Let’s go.”
So I tried it. Believe it or not, it actually did go IN. But I didn’t have to like it.
Fast forward to now and here I am, 41 years old.
I’m not all that different in this regard. In fact, I was just in the airport on an extended delay and three times I went into the bathroom to ‘check’ and make sure things were all properly in place. I still resent things needing to go IN and I’m not too thrilled with the things that you use OUT either.
To be honest I hate the whole thing.
I think I’ll look up all my grade school chums. You know, to find out who STOPPED.
“Pam called me and said that Debbie STOPPED. Yeah, it sort of tapered off and – bam – gone. No more. Totally unexpected. Debbie said her older sister didn’t stop until she was in her mid-50s. Terri’s mom didn’t stop until she was 62! I’m totally ready. Like, I could stop any time and I’d be happy. But I’m a little worried about the hot flashes and stuff. I heard this one chick had it so bad she went to Mexico for some special hormonal herbal holistic type treatment, but someone said she should have totally just drank some green tea or something.”
The only thing scarier than NOT STOPPING, I guess, would be STOPPING.
I’m in a whole new place feminine-cyclistically speaking (See? New word again! No, not speaking you idiot – that’s not new… cyclistically is though! Adverb, of or having to do with cycles.) Someone mentioned it may be perimenopause. Me? But I’m only 41. Way too young to stop. And what if I change my mind about, um, things that are already decided that I have no plan to change my mind about (but if I did, and the baby was a girl, I would name her Hazel)???
This whole package sucks – starting, stopping, and all the goddamned ABSORBING that needs to be done in the years between.
In conclusion, I just wanted to ask you all one simple question: can you please check the back of my skirt? I think I might have leaked through! OMG – I’m totally changing jobs if that happens. Maybe I should go to work for these guys. With five daughters, the perk of an employee discount could be worth millions.
