From Playgirls to Periods: A Coming of Age Story by Adiba Nelson
From Playgirls to Periods: A Coming of Age Story by Adiba Nelson
May is Period Health Awareness Month - Vol. I
Editor’s Note: May is Period Awareness Month! Yes, getting your period can be a drag, but it’s an important function of the female body. It’s something that we all deal with, but aren’t supposed to talk about, even though it happens on a frequent, and regular basis. Every girl and woman experiences their period differently, with it impacting their daily lives from sports to culture, religion, and social environments. The hormones related to menstruation and menopause impact women’s health in ways that are still not fully understood, and millions of girls and women do not have access to period products for the same reason: it’s rude to talk about your period. To bring awareness and de-stigmatize the period, The Earthly Kitchen is bringing you a collection of true stories every Friday for the month of May from guest writers. Be sure you’re subscribed to receive newsletters right to your inbox and share with your menstruating friends!
By Adiba Nelson
Dear reader: This isn’t your average “first period” story, but does such thing even exist? Don’t make it weird. I’ve already done that for you. Enjoy!
“Look at this book my mom gave me last night! It has ‘the word’ in it!”
“What word?”
“The word!”
“Wait”, I stared at my cousin with a mixture of panic and excitement dancing behind my pupils. “*The* word? As in the the word?”
“YES.”
I remember holding the bright green hardcover book in my hands, running my short, thin, six-year-old fingers over the glossy cover and studying the red letters on the cover: “Plants, Seeds and Embryos”. My aunt decided to use the book to introduce the concept of sex, and all that goes with it – periods included, to my cousin, who knew our cousin-ship would be on the skids if she didn’t immediately show it to me. I stared at the words. I knew what a plant was, and I knew what a seed was, but an embryo? It was a miracle I could even pronounce it. My cousin, who was two years older than me and turning the pages like they were on fire finally let her fingers come to a grinding halt.
“There!” she whisper-screamed, using her index finger to stab at the three black letters on the white page. I stared at the letters, barely believing my eyes, and my mouth fell open. Threatening to jump out of my throat like a sneaky olive in my Nana’s Christmas pasteles, I cupped my hands over my mouth in protection, and quietly let the word tiptoe out.
“Sex.”
Yahaira’s eyes grew to double their typical bullfrog size, shocked I dared to actually say the word. We both dissolved in a heap of giggles on her plush, teal bedroom carpet. Had I really just said the word? Had anyone heard me? Had God heard me? Was I going to go to hell for kind of cursing? I stared up at the Barbie dolls that lined the upper quarter of Yahaira’s bedroom wall like a plastic, human-ish shaped, 3D wallpaper border, and briefly wondered: would Barbie ever say that word?
I’d heard it before but wasn’t exactly sure what it meant. However, I knew it was an “adult” word, to describe things “adults” did, and it wasn’t a curse word, but it was curse-word adjacent. It wasn’t something that six-year-olds were supposed to discuss over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Capri-Suns, but I needed to know exactly what it meant. If I was going to giggle that hard over three little letters, I should have at least known what made them so funny.
A few nights later I finally mustered up the courage to ask my very spiritual, somewhat religious, but full of old wives tales mother what the word meant and even today, forty years later, I still cannot adequately explain how unprepared I was for what happened next. My Puerto Rican mother who believed in the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help her Virgen Maria, opened up the current issue of Playgirl magazine which, for some reason, was in the stereo cabinet, and proceeded to explain to me all the parts of a man’s sexual anatomy. This was followed by her free-hand illustrations of a woman’s sexual anatomy, and the explanation of how it works, and then, the piece-de-resistance, how they work *together*.
And thus, the conversation around periods and the almighty death roll we call a menstrual cycle was born.
It was all very matter of fact. There was the “uterus-and-the-uterine-wall-lining-and-the-shedding-and-the-fallopian-tubes-and-the-eggs-that-travel-and-either-do-or-do-not-get-fertilized- if-and-only-if-you’ve-had-unprotected-sex-which-you-absolutely-should-not-be-having-if-you- aren’t-married” part. There was the “sex-is-between-a-man-and-a-woman-who-love-each-other- very-much” part. And then there was the “blood-comes-out-of-your-vagina-when-the-egg-isn’t- fertilized-and-you-catch-the-blood-with-a-pad-and-never-a-tampon-because-if-you-use-a-tampon-you-won’t-be-a-virgin-anymore-because-you’ll-have-to-break-your-hymen-to-use-a- tampon-and-your-hymen-should-only-be-broken-during-sex-so-you-can’t-ride-horses-either- because-I’ve-heard-that-can-break-your-hymen-and-devirginize-you-too” part.
This was an incredible amount of information to bestow on a six-year-old but truth reigned supreme in our household, and my mother assured me I had at least another seven to ten years before I had to worry about catching blood on notepads and avoiding horses at all costs. I breathed a sigh of relief and knowledge. Relief that this bloodletting was not in my immediate future and knowledge that I now knew what the old man next door looked like naked.
However, my mother was wrong, and she had only partially informed me.
I didn’t have seven to ten years before Aunt Flo came for me, I had five. My period started when I was eleven-years-old. Also, my mother didn’t inform me about the rite of passage that young girls get to experience when they get their period for the first time. You know – the one where you call your mom from the hall bathroom and she comes running back and you show her the blood droplets on your stain free white panties and she turns around and announces to her semi-new boyfriend sitting in the living room that you’ve “just gotten your first period” and he hollers back a little too excitedly “Congratulations! I’ll be right back!” as he runs out the door. And then your mom guides you through how to affix your pad to new, clean panties and tosses your new “period panties” into the laundry basket just as her semi-new boyfriend bounds back into the apartment with a single red rose for you to signify your transition into womanhood, and then you all drive up to the top of “A” mountain, you begrudgingly, so that you can look out over the city and contemplate what this momentous occasion means for the rest of your life, while ten other cars rock back and forth with couples celebrating their own momentous occasions while they secretly prayed there were no eggs awaiting fertilization later that night.
You know – that ritual.
Oh wait. That’s not how *your* first period experience went? That ritual’s not a thing? That was just me and mygood fortune of free bleeding and celebrating it with 20 other strangers plus my mom and her boyfriend who were all making out on top of a mountain in the middle of the city?
Cool, cool, cool. First periods are awesome.
Adiba Nelson is the author of Ain’t That A Mother, subject of the Emmy winning documentary, “The Full Nelson,” and Executive Producer and Creative Consultant on the TV-series based on her memoir (currently in development). She writes the Sh*t We Don’t Say newsletter.
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