my little red book/ my first period

is a book about getting your first period.

The experiences range from being a seat-bleeder on a water skiing trip with your grandfather to one woman who was on her period and was also at the time fleeing Poland so she wouldn't get deported to a concentration camp and once she go to the German border she didn't get stripped searched by Nazis. They let her pass and she escaped.

I'm only 20 pages in and I am blown away about the openness this book produces and just how these stories are not like my own, but as a woman myself I completely relate to those feelings of utter horror and shame. I'm really glad I have to read this book for my Human Sexualities class. My professor is looking for a male equal to the book. So if you know anything let me know and I will pass on the information.

Now, for the sake of this not being a short post I'll share my own experience of when I had my first period. It is in no way a unique story. It is very well quite boring.

I was in the seventh grade. I can't recall any pain or anything leading up to that day at Copper Middle School in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, but I do remember going to the bathroom and once I was done wiping I looked at the toilet paper and there it was-- a faint shade of pink.

Reflecting upon it now, I believe that I was more annoyed than anything. Although my own mother never talked to me about periods or the birds and the bees I had two older sisters to look up to. I'm sure by this time Ashley (the middle child and two years older than I) had already had hers. Still though I didn't ask her and to this day we've really talked about any of these things.

After flushing I probably went to the main office, because the bathroom I was in was right next to the gym which was across from the main office. I'm sure I called my mom, who to this day still works at Kraft Foods. She wasn't close and it would be a while picking me up. I don't remember if I put toilet paper between my legs for the time being, but my next memory was at my locker and I was crouched down. I was shoving books into my bag in a fury. I think I was crying, because my psychologist, Ms. Ginsburg, found me and asked what was wrong. I think I had the nerve to sigh like she was bothering me and I distinctly remembering saying, "It's something all girls get." After that I don't remember my mom picking me up or going to the store and buying me pads. I assume we already had some at home and I could just take Ashley's. I'm sure I did that many months after. But I'm also sure that my mother and I didn't really talk about it after that.

Once in a while she would ask if I needed pads from the store. I was still embarrassed so I said, "No! Leave me alone." Sometimes she would return with three bags of super! I was running out of places to hide them in my room. On the other side of the spectrum I always tried to hide my period from my Dad. I didn't want him to know. It was even more awkward with my father. I do remember one time, riding in a truck with him. I was in the middle seat so someone had to be on my left, but I remember I was in shorts. I never really liked the way my thighs looks in shorts. But somehow the conversation ended up on "baby fat." I didn't know if I still had mine. My Dad told me I didn't. I assumed he was talking me getting my period.

When I was young I wanted to be skinny and in shape-- still do to this day! I figured once I'd lose the baby fat I'd start getting in shape. Or so I thought. But after that ride I thought I was fat, because I was fat and not because I had "baby" fat to still lose. It had already gone and I was this way because I was just now fat. My logic was false, but slowly I'm learning to love my body the way it is.

Now that I had regular periods my product of choice was pads. I knew which ones to wear at night. Which ones to wear with these pants and so on so forth. I thought I had a pretty good system and for the most part smell wasn't an issue. I can hardly smell myself. As for those other middle schoolers I can't say. And the only time I remember pads being brought forth in a middle school setting was actually a really mean prank pulled on someone I knew around the halls. My friend Sam Smith (?) had a pad and a red marker. She opened the pad and took the marker and scribbled all over the pad. And as we were in the hallway she took the red stained pad and rubbed it all over Mike Messermans head. She was short and he was already about 6 foot, but it still somehow managed to stick to the top of his head. Everyone laughed and I felt horribly for him. Somehow I feel as though that made me ashamed of asking for pads to other girls and ultimately the school nurse.

Then came Wheeling High School. It just so happens we were a school that had a swimming pool and thus a swim unit. I was 14 or so and still wore pads. I didn't discover till I was junior that I still wore training bras! I didn't know how to handle having my period and having a swim unit at the same time. Of course the teachers give the speech that girls get two days off of swimming for the month. Instead of swimming though, they had to run 24 laps in the field house. And that was no easy task if you had cramps like a bitch. Or that shifting your legs back and forth and only wearing a pad that felt like diaper really drove up the smell factor. The fact that you were already bloated and hot just magnified the whole experience. Granted if you had tampons you were golden and probably were expected to still swim. I'll get to that in a moment. Again, I wasn't a tampon user. They scared me. I didn't want to shove anything in a tiny hole that I couldn't see. And as a side note. I've never fully masturbated before. I really never had the urge to touch myself. And the first time I watched a porno I was like 12 and my best friend was sleeping over. We didn't understand and didn't want the t.v too loud, because my room was right next to my parents. I went to bed confused.

So tampons were scary and I had a swimming unit. I've had male and female gym teachers in high school. No one really cared that you had your period. And my male teachers made me feel even more ashamed when I had to walk over to them in front of everyone and say I had to go running. And once in the field house, everyone pretty much knew you had your period, because you were the only kid from the other class not in the swimming pool!

And this might offended and disgust people that have attended and have swam and swam in that very same class as I, but sometimes I would wear underwear and a pad under my swimming trunks. I really truly did not know better. Of course it served no purpose, but I figured it better than wearing nothing! I only did that once or twice and the one time I didn't want to do it, my teacher said that I should just put in a tampon. But she didn't understand and she kind of just rolled her eyes. I'm sure that day I didn't complete 24 laps and thus got no credit that day. I do understand that girls use their periods to get out of swimming. Swimming at 7:25 in the morning or mid day or at 2:50 sucked. And during the winter in sucked even more. You only get so much time to shower and put your clothes back on. There were only 4 bathroom stalls. How could you shower, grab a stall and put in a new tampon, blow dry your hair if you had your period and even if you didn't-- it was a circus in those changing rooms. So as it goes, all throughout high school I wore pads.

It wasn't until my second year of college, fall quarter, that I tried a tampon for the first time. I walked with my legs like a crab, because closing them I felt like I could feel the cotton pillar up there. And once I yanked it out it looked like a dead mouse dangling for a soaked string. Perhaps I'll write a poem about it. And now I wear tampons and it was an experience. They are way better and no longer figuring out which pad to wear with what type of clothing. But there are still rules.

You can't pee with it in. The string and lower half of the tampon will soak up the pee. So if you just put one in, you just wasted one! Turning on the water to wash your hands personally makes me feel like a jerk. My fingers are sticky and red and smelly. I try to wash the sink after I put in a tampon. Which depending on the day can be 3+ times a day. Also as a general rule of pads and tampons you ruin A LOT of good pairs of underwear. That more than anything pisses me off. I forget to check and I only know a tampon has overstayed it's welcome when I started smelling it or it already has stained through the jeans!

Moving forward, during the F-Word Ladies first show Touch on Bodies (I had yet to join the group), I was asked to read poetry for the open mic after. I agreed and shared some poetry about some past sexual experiences. After that I pulled out one of my moleskin books and it listed the exact time and date that I had first used a tampon. It a crowd of gosh 50+ and I told them that only a few weeks ago I put in my very first tampon. It was a great moment and I had a very nice applause.

Edit: I found my moleskin book! Thus finding the exact date and time I used my first tampon! It was on 9.09.09 at 3:08 pm. Check that. Hah.

Lastly as a too much information bit, cover your eyes, I am on my period right now. And yes-- I have a tampon in.

Submit your first period stories or other stories like it to thefwordladies@gmail.com. Please include your name and if you will allow us permission to re-post your story on the F-Word Ladies blog.

-Sonja

EDIT: GREAT NEWS! Fellow F-Word Lady Glenna Brucken shared her experience of getting her first period on the F-Word Ladies Blog. Be sure to read it and submit your own stories to The F-Word Ladies at thefwordladies@gmail.com

I STARTED

this blog along with its sister blog The F-Word Ladies as a tool for me to cope, heal and transition into and away from these last few years of my undergraduate education. And ultimately share the experience of being a part of an all female theater company.

First off, my name is Sonja Lynn Mata. I was named this because my own mother threw a fit and left the hospital leaving my father with a pen and blank piece of paper. Once she returned I had been named Sonja with a 'j'-- for Jesse (my fathers name) & also from the movie The Red Sonja (which I have yet to see!) and Lynn which was short for Linda (my mothers name).

Currently it is summer and I am working for the Ohio Valley Summer Theater here in Athens, Ohio which is a college town for Ohio University. Later this summer I plan to return back to my native Chicago-land home and continue theater with another community company. I am entering my junior year and I am planning to get a B.F.A in Theater Performance, a minor in English (Creative Writing) and a certificate in Women and Gender Studies.

I'm also 5'2.5 and I have one hell of a story to tell-- or at least I think so.

At the beginning of spring quarter I was hit and injured by a drunk driver. Now, this isn't what inspired me to join The F-Word Ladies, let alone start this blog, but you know how these things go-- I appreciate life more. So on and so on. Rather it was a situation I could hold and say "That's where it started." What started? I still don't know. I don't know if I actually care to know what that what was, but with that I joined an all female theater company.

The F-Word Ladies are rooted in Feminism & I declared myself a feminist on May 28th 2010. I took an intro level to WGS and I'm not done learning. I do not claim to know anything about feminism or feminist theory. I only know this company and what I believe it shares with this campus.

So this is my journey. You are welcome to come along.

-Sonja