Lilac Colored Glasses

Once again it’s Flashback Friday, held by Cablegirl at 42.

I have a whole list of topics to flash back to but this post at Musings from a Muse inspired me to write about something very very disturbing that I remember all too clearly.

The first time I got my period. (cue horror movie music)

I remember when I was 9 how my mother took me to my room, sat me down on my bed and proceeded to lay out a multitude of pamphlets, library books and other literature regarding menstruation, puberty and sex. I was horrified. Dad had already explained to me how babies were made after I’d tried telling him about a rumor regarding one of the New Kids on the Block on the way to Hebrew School the year before. Wasn’t it enough that I knew how to make a baby and furthermore had vowed, in disgust, how I would never ever EVER let a boy stick ANY part of himself that close to me EVER?

But alas, my mother and her mother before her had both begun their descent into journey towards puberty around the age of nine, so Mum opted to start my full education early. And oddly enough,while I was absolutely revolted and embarassed in regards to my period when I was 9, I started worrying about the absence of my period when I was 11 and my other friends started getting theirs. By the time I was 12 it seemed like everybody had gotten theirs but me and I was starting to feel a bit ashamed that I wasn’t as grown up as everyone else my age.

In May of 1994 I turned 13 and still no period. At that point my mother started to get a bit antsy as well. I had started developing everywhere else (ouchy boobs, icky hairs) but still nothing in the ovary department. Somehow my aunt (one of my dad’s older sisters) got wind of my distress and told me privately that her period hadn’t started until she was sixteen and it was normal for some girls to start later than others. Finally I relaxed. Sixteen! I didn’t have to worry about it for another three years and I could still be normal! Woohoo!

Later that summer I went to soccer camp in Edinboro, PA with a large group of girls from my soccer team. It was mid-summer and excruciatingly hot. We were all staying in a wing of one of the dorms, two to each sweltering room. Every day we were up by 7:00 am (it was blessedly cool at that hour), dressed, fed and waiting to separate into our drill groups by 8:30. We practiced skills until lunch, whereupon we returned to the cafeteria, went back to the field for more skills, returned for dinner, went to separate soccer fields for games and scrimmages, and then we went back to the dorms for showers, lights were out at 10:30. It is worth mentioning that we walked everywhere. You did not get a ride unless you were sick (and I mean vomitting violently and/or fever over 101°) or injured (breaks, open and bloody wounds, severe sprains/tears).

There was one day, towards the end of the week (maybe it was two weeks…either way this was towards the end) when right after lunch it started to rain. We kept drilling, even as the rain became a downpour and the fields and roads flooded. Eventually someone saw lightening and that’s when the coaches opted to call it a day and let us go back early. We were all drenched and didn’t even bother to remove our cleats and shin guards as we trudged up the steep hill back to the dorms. When we got back all everyone wanted to do was get dry, but we had to strip down in the bathroom so as no to get our rooms/the carpetting wet. We were also all in our early teens and refused to be naked in front of each other, so everyone took turns stripping in the bathroom, wrapping in a towel and scuffling back to their room to get dressed. When it was my turn I slopped into the bathroom and decided it was as good a time as any to empty my bladder. I lowered my Umbros, sliders and panties, looked down and started to scream.

“OH. MY. GAAAAWWD!!!!!”

What the fuck was this?? I wasn’t supposed to get my period now! Not when I was far from home and surrounded by hypercritical teenage girls and soaking wet and exhausted! It was such a mess! No one told me it wasn’t like the blood that came out of a cut or a scrape. And my panties and sliders were soaked….and white. I started to cry. One of the older girls, my good friend, but also one of the more condescending members of our group called to me.

“What is it?”

“I…um…I got my…um…my period, I think.”

“You think? Don’t you know?” And now the other girls were giggling.

“I’ve uh, never…I mean, I never had it…before.” The gigglling stopped and one of the younger girls told me to come over to her room after I was showered and dressed.

So I cleaned up the best I knew how and went over to her room where she gave me a brown paper bag full of pads. She had brought them just in case but had no need for them (we were leaving in a day or two). I thanked her and when the rain stopped I went to the nurse and asked if I could please call my mother.

“Mom, it’s me. Everything’s ok, but I thought you might want to know, I got my period.”

“Oh, Kor, that’s great! Congratulations!”

“Mom, it’s not great and don’t tell anyone, ok?”

A few days later my mom came to get me, beaming and telling me how wonderful it was to be a woman. I listened sullenly the whole ride home. My grandparents were at our house when we got there. My mom had invited them for dinner. I got out of the car and my grandma came running over to hug me.

“Congratulations!” she cried, hugging me tighter. Grandpa just looked at me funny and nodded.

“Mom!”

“What?! I had to tell your grandmother!”

Little did we know that that first period would be the ruination of the rest of my summer. It lasted for three weeks and led to my first Obgyn appointment as well as a trip to the city blood bank. But those are stories for another time.