1.) I wet the bed until I was 12 years old. Mom fed me Dodd’s kidney pills. I slept with her and my brother slept with Dad, while my 3 sisters shared a room.
2.) When I was 8 in Grade 5 and flat chested, of course, the only other girl, Shirley, was 12 and had breasts. I overheard the girls in Grade 8 asking my oldest sister why I didn’t have breasts like Shirley did. Uh Oh! Malformed! Disfigured!
3.) When I was 10 and still in a room with Mom, someone was scrabbling/ peeking/giggling through a warp in the bedroom door as I dressed. After that, all 4 siblings called me ‘baldy’. I had no idea what was wrong with me now. My mother had a hysterectomy at age 40, so…. If she heard the taunts then that is why she asked if I wanted to see her scar (which was like an order, “Come look at my scar.”) I saw her tummy, the scar and a patch of black and “baldy’ came into place. Uh Oh! Malformed! Disfigured! It took two years of searching for ONE hair before I knew I was right!
4.) Something was going on in the girls’ bedroom and no one was talking! I knew there was something, so I waited until they were all out somewhere and went snooping. I found a pamphlet about Kotex and Sanitary Belts under the mattress of one of the beds, and I found Kotex in the cupboard. That’s how I learned about menstruation. I was still under age 12.
5.) I didn’t move into that room until I was 14, after my eldest sister left home with her periods and breasts, and I’d stopped wetting the bed (an embarrassing incident at my girlfriend’s place, age 12, wetting her brother’s bed.)
6.) At age 15 I finally had blossomed a wee bit, and had my period. I didn’t know what to do about Mom, since she had never told me anything. I went to her and I remember these words very clearly, “In case you are interested, I have my period now”. She answered with, ”Good! Then we know nothing is wrong!”
Oh yes, and don't let a boy put his hand underneath your skirt.
I ought to write a book for adolescent girls, eh what?
xx
Izzy
