26 days 'til 45

That's Just the Way it Is. Period.

When I was about 9 years old, my mom took me aside to have a talk with me. It was a Saturday morning, so I knew this was serious. Saturday was about cartoons and hair washing and shopping, not discussions.So I already had a bad feeling about this. And it was a talk just between the two of us. My brother was nowhere in sight. Yeah, this was going to be "the talk." Well, at least one of them.

My mom told me that my cousin had started her period that morning. I had already heard about getting periods, and according to my sources, it only happened to "fast" girls. Now I was being told that this happens to all girls and that it could happen to me any day now. Yep, this was bad news. It got worse.

Mom told me that a period could last from 3 to 7 days, that I might experience some pain, and that I could expect it to happen every 28 days...until I was an old lady. She told me about mini-pads and pregnancy, about how she hid it from her mom, and how she did not want me to be afraid to talk to her about it. She said many other things that day, but the thing that stuck in my head was that she said that now my cousin may act different and that I was not to ask her about her period. She was becoming an adult and needed some time to adjust. She asked if I had any questions.

Sure I did. Could you be wrong, mom? Is there anyway out of this? What is my cousin going to be like now? Will she stop talking to me? Did she have to stop playing with me? Why wasn't I born a boy? All they do is talk about sports and guns. I was bummed after our conversation and would remain that way for the next few weeks.

That same day, my mom, brother, and I went with my cousin's family to the Natural History Museum in Dallas. There on display was a clear figure of a woman with visible internal organs...and she was pregnant and you could see the developing baby inside of her. Next to her was a huge wheel where you could chart your...period. My cousin, who usually told me everything, had not said a word about her period.

I felt so alone. There was my cousin, walking around becoming an adult, and a chart of my destiny spinning right in front of my eyes. I was being assaulted with this period thing and I really wanted no part of it.

When I did get my period two years later, I still didn't feel any better about it. Sure, I had read Are You There, God? It's me, Margaret by then. Just because those girls were happy and excited about getting their periods didn't mean I felt the same way.

Since I could not change the fact that I was a girl and that this was going to happen to me and one day I would be grateful for it because then I could have babies and it's a beautiful thing, blah, blah, blah, and I had to accept the things that I could not change, I finally let go of that feeling of betrayal I had since my mom told me about "being a woman." When that happened, I won't say because it was embarassingly late in game.

My mom really did a great job and I'm sure that I could do a good job too. However, if I ever have a daughter, or iof my husband's daughter is with us when her period starts, I am going to try to talk my husband into having "the talk" with her. He knows all about it, more than some women I know, and has not been emotionally scarred by hearing about periods. He'll do a great job.

I'll talk to her about football.