Did You Get Yours Yet?

Even as a woman, I'm not quite sure I'll ever understand the excitement of getting your period, but in the fifth and sixth grades that is what all the girls talked about.

When does it come? How does it feel? How will I change? Were questions on everyone's mind.

"Well, my mom said that getting a period makes you a woman." A girl would say.

"My mom said it is a curse because of Eve eating the apple." Another girl would say. And when someone got theirs everyone would ask them about it.

When I got my period I didn't say anything. As a matter of fact I really didn't know if it was my period or not. I saw something in my underwear one night and I put some toilet paper over the dark substance and thought I would just handle it in the morning. I was kind of scared, and that morning I told my mom and she told me what to do.

"You don't have to tell anyone that you got your period, it's personal," my mother told me before I went to school, that day, after she asked me if I wanted to stay home, of course. At that time in my life having perfect attendance in school meant more to me than some silly little period.I didn't want anyone to know, especially the boys. I never told anyone that day in May about getting my period. I knew I wasn't going to talk about my period even if there was a girl who had bragged about getting hers the week before.

I soon learned that periods can be pretty painful and inconvenient. Through my adolescent and pubescent years I struggled with heavy and cramp filled periods. I dealt with these problems until I was in college and began taking birth control pills, which helped to alleviate the cramps.

Getting your period seems like something girls wish for until they get it, then they realize the inconvenience of a period, like when it comes the day you thought you were going to the beach. I guess the next step in understanding the Menstrual Cycle and its importance is pregnancy. The menstrual cycle is a sign that womanhood has begun and so are the possibilities of getting pregnant. Then pregnancy is womanhood developing into motherhood.

So pregnancy is the next, "When will it happen? What does it feel like?," moment to take place in my life and the more the world highlights the baby bumps in Hollywood and the more friends post ultrasound pics on facebook, the more I wonder like we did in the fifth and sixth grades about the next journey into life as a woman and maybe then I will understand all the excitement.