Heavan's First

Heavan, age twenty two, is a best friend a girl could ask for--a fearless woman and role model to many. She sings on the worship team at church, participates yearly at MyLead, proudly wears the label of "ginger", and will talk with me about yucky, embarrassing, secret topics...like periods. Here's the story, as told by Heavan, about her first period.

It was the second day of freshmen year.  I was completely stressing out because I was in high school finally, and I wanted everything to be perfect.  Chill out with my friends, ace all my classes, OWN high school.  I  felt like a complete weirdo, because here I was, 14 years old, IN HIGH SCHOOL, and all of my friends had gotten a visit from the period fairy; making them "women".  I felt like an awkward little girl this particular day, lugging my gym bag to class and into a locker room full of girls who were "so pissed they'd started on swim day". One girl asked me "do you have a tampon", and I simply said "I haven't started".  She looked at me like it was no big deal until my best friend decided to announce "NO NO NO girls, she hasn't started...PERIOD."  Talk about embarrassment as I suddenly had multiple eyes on me, staring me down like I was some sort of prepubescent teenager.  I quickly put on my suit and walked out.
Fast forward to gym class, where we were swimming laps for the first hour, and then had a lovely 30 minutes of "free time".  During this free time we could either stay in the pool or get dressed and start heading back to the high school.  (My gym was about a block away from the high school)  Wanting to beat the rush in the awkward locker room, I got out of the pool and got dressed and started to make my way to my back to my next class.
Next class was English, which I was about 4 minutes early for, so I sat down outside of the door and waited for the bell to ring.  Once it did, I went in and sat down.  I was in honors English, which meant we had to have a book read before school had started, along with a report.  Since this was the second day of school, meaning the first "real" day, it was due.  I sat my paper down on the teacher's desk, and quietly made my way to the back.   Once the class started to file in, the teacher announced that if we had our paper done we basically got a free period because this class was going to be spent writing it if you hadn't.  Being the bookworm that I was, I pulled out the next book we would have been reading and started to read.  Halfway through the class, I got these weird tummy cramps.  I thought that I had eaten something bad, so I took a couple of pepto pills I had in my purse, hoping it would subside.  When the cramps got worse, and started to go into my back, I decided that maybe I should go into the bathroom.  I took the bathroom pass and ran, feeling like I was going to throw up.  When I got to the bathroom and sat down to go pee, I nearly had a heart attack.  THERE WAS BLOOD EVERYWHERE.  I thought I was dying; lol, no but really I was freaking out.  My new school jeans were ruined, and I had one of two options.  I could go back into class, looking like some serial killer did a number on my lady parts causing MORE embarrassment, or I could call my mom and have her come get me.  I decided to go with the latter, having had enough embarrassment from the locker room.  So I called her, and OMG, was she excited.  "Ahhh HEAVAN YOU'RE A WOMAN NOW".  I simply said "Just bring me something and a new pair of pants"; because DEAR GOD were these cramps terrible.  I had no idea 'becoming a woman' meant you had to deal with so much pain.  Eve, I blame you.
30 minutes later, still awkwardly sitting on the toilet my mother FINALLY arrives with a bottle of naproxen sodium, a new pair of jeans, a pad, and a big box of chocolates.  I looked at her with tears in my eyes and said "how did you know i was craving those", she said "woman's intuition".  After getting all cleaned up and changed, she said "wanna go home and relax? you must be tired"...I was in awe! How did she know I suddenly felt sleepy?  As we were leaving she said "you know your father is going to have a field day with this", Chocolates in hand, head held high, I simply said "yeah...ah dad" and walked out of that school with a sudden pride about myself.  I was a woman now.  Nothing was going to stop me. : D