Why does becoming a woman include so much blood?

and how I ruined my Tuesday outfit

In fifth grade, my friend KP and I got ‘The Care and Keeping of You’ - the American Girl book that was the 2000s rite of passage to womanhood. We’d sit at her desk, poring over all of the changes we could expect from our body - where hair would grow and how to shave, how to properly shower our bodies, what our boobs could grow in and look like and most importantly, becoming women and getting our period. When we got our period, then life would begin. Do you remember romanticizing your period? Romanticizing becoming a woman? Was that just me?

One more question: Do you remember this book? I can still see the pictures of the different stages of growing boobs, wondering what mine would eventually look like (I’m still waiting). Or the pages teaching you how to shave your legs, which, during this discussion in KP’s room, her nanny came into the room to teach us the importance of always using shaving cream and water because shaving dry would cause a rash, she lived it and would not recommend (in case you are still learning yourself!!!).

It is a good thing I got this book in fifth grade because that is when the intrusive little gremlin of puberty started rearing its ugly head. One day I woke up and I had dark hair everywhere. Under my arms, under…other places. I wasn’t totally bothered by this yet and still decided to rock some sleeveless looks, and sleeveless looks did I have. One of my rotation outfits was a hot pink sleeveless button down paired with pink capris with a green palm tree motif. I was still insufferable in elementary school, always raising my hand to answer the teacher, and this particular day was no different. As the teacher asked a question, most likely ‘who would like to read out loud,’ I shot my hand up like most other days. This day was a little different as a boy named Stephan loudly said ‘ew’ and pointed directly to my underarm. I was mortified. What was wrong?? It is just hair! I’m sure I cried, but thankfully my brain has blocked that out. What I do remember is immediately running home to my sister and asking her what to do. Magically, that year for my 10th birthday, I received the Veggie Tales Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything DVD and my first razor - a bright orange, wide, Gillette for women. The kind that now are apparently on eBay described as ‘vintage.’ While singing along to the Relient K cover of Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything, I dreamed of what it would be like to walk into school completely hairless, ready to show Stephan and all the other boys. In my over eagerness, I decided to shave my upper thigh, a decision I live to regret to this day. Due to the hair growing back darker, I’m stuck doing this for the rest of my life. IFYKYK.

Listed on eBay as ‘Vtg Gillette Sensor Excel Orange Clear Razor for Women NEW Sealed Rare 2001.’ Sold for $31.36

The gremlin didn’t just bring early hair. The gremlin decided to make me ‘a woman’ earlier than everyone I knew! One January, when I was 11, I was in my room grounded for not turning in homework (as previously discussed). The year earlier, we had moved into a new house where I essentially got my own ‘wing.’ I didn’t have an en suite bathroom, but my bedroom and bathroom were tucked away in the back of a hallway. As soon as you opened my bedroom door and took a right, you were in the bathroom. Apart from feeling RICH and EXCLUSIVE (of which I was neither), it made midnight bathroom excursions much easier. Anyway, I was sitting in my Aeropostale pajama pants which were white with turtles on them, and decided to go to the bathroom. As I pulled down my pants, I saw a pool of blood. It took me a second to realize what was happening but I ran downstairs to tell my mother after changing underwear and shoving some toilet paper down there. She said ‘welcome to becoming a woman. Normally I would take you out to lunch to celebrate, but you are grounded.’ She set me up with a giant maxi pad and sent me on my way. We never did go to lunch, but don’t worry, I’ve never let her forget it!!!

As a new bleeder, I wasn’t yet familiar with the dreaded bleed through. You know, when you are caught off guard by your start date, or even worse, when the systems you have set up down there fail you. I don’t think you ever forget your first bleed through, especially if it happened in public at school. If we can sense a common theme, my body always made sure (and still does) to conduct all of its business in public. For example, in sixth grade, I was still heavy on rotational outfits. On Tuesday, I would wear my light blue windbreaker capris from Gap and my sister’s American Eagle navy blue graphic tee that had the same blue writing as my windbreakers that said “Battle of the Bands: Rap vs Rock.” I would always wear my navy blue New Balance sneakers. I felt unstoppable, infinite. Everything on me was my power color, every Tuesday. One day, literally strutting from lunch to 4th period English because of my outfit, my teacher Ms. Trossbach came up and whispered in my ear ‘dear, you have bled through your pants.’ WHAT? THAT CAN HAPPEN? I looked around to all my friends (as we were in a single file line) to beg them with my eyes that this was all a joke. This couldn’t be true. My social life was on the balance here, my whole reputation. I couldn’t have bled through. A friend that was behind me simply said ‘I thought you sat in ketchup and didn’t want to embarrass you.’ I called my mother sobbing, expecting her to only bring me a new pair of pants. Instead, she checked me out and I got to go home. Speaking of unexpected grace and love from parents, that is a moment from my mother I’ll never forget.

I wore maxi pads for far too long. The diaper types, with the wings that you know you can see through your too tight pants. This happened with my sister and myself, where my mother didn’t think you could wear a tampon if you were a virgin, yet she and I both chose water sports. She was on the swim team, I was on the sailing team. I cannot speak for her, but let me tell you - a maxi pad in a swimsuit, in a wetsuit, that is constantly wet does not make for a good time. Both my sister and myself, because of our sports, were eventually allowed to switch to tampons but personally, woof, what a journey. I really struggled with tampon application.

Even before being allowed to wear a tampon, Danielle at church camp tried teaching me. I sat on the toilet for an hour, with multiple tampons, trying to make it work. Eventually, exhausted at failing, I pretended I got it to work and proudly waddled out to the hotel room. Waddled, because I was already chafing from the half in half out tampon that was not even able to work. I would never admit defeat. I let that thing ride half way in all afternoon until eventually I was so uncomfortable I had to rip it out and settle for the diaper.

Sadly, even studying ‘The Care and Keeping of You’ and their tampon instructions for months and months didn’t help me. But as I’m reflecting on this, I’m realizing how gruesome being a woman is. From the start of ‘womanhood’ with an epic bleed and a massive hormone shift, to the shave, wax, pluck, nip, tuck of it all - also including blood - to giving birth and changing our bodies, to losing our bleed and having our hormones completely shift again. Consider this my formal petition to keep ‘The Care and Keeping of You’ all throughout a woman’s life, from puberty to menopause and everything in between. We need to have a guidebook or research or the openness to speak about all of these changes we are going through. We, as a community of women, should collect all of our stories, all the weird, wonderful and beautiful things our bodies do and change, and write them down for future generations. We should include endearing graphics and easy to follow how to’s as well: ‘how to get rid of that stubborn chin hair,’ ‘are diva cups actually effective and how to use them,’ ‘what to do if your partner chews too loudly and you feel rage,’ or even ‘why you can’t sleep and that is probably just perimenopause.’

Is anyone a good illustrator here?

Share your stories with me here! My vision is to make this more of a column where we can create more community and share more stories together. Thanks for making that vision come to life.