Kate’s Story

I was

OBSESSED 

with menstruating before I started my cycle. Obsessed. I thought about it, read about it, dreamed about it, wrote about it in my little journal. Saved pads and tampons out of excitement before I ever started. I think I knew deeply and intuitively that it was an immensely powerful rite of passage and portal of power even though I didn’t use those words to describe my excitement. I got my hands on this old Judy Blume book “Are You There God It’s Me Margaret” about a pre-menstrual young girl who longs to start her period and prays to get it. I vividly remember asking my personal god energy to let me bleed. When I finally did, I was living with my dad and step mom and I remember going to the bathroom and finding a tiny red/brown stain and being SO EXCITED. I told my stepmom and she told my dad and when I came downstairs he made a big dorky fuss about how I’d become a woman and I was like -_-.

And I remember when my mom found out, she was crushed that I hadn’t been living with her when I started. I think it really hurt her that she wasn’t the one to be there for that day. 

-Kate, they/she, 35