I am woman hear me roar!!! Helen Reddy look out.

Well, I did it now. I had sex. This wasn’t something that I could take back or do over. It was a done deal. Once again I chose to follow rather than lead. This would be a pattern that I would repeat long after my days of childhood were a mere memory.

Did you know that there is a law on the books somewhere that says once you say yes to having sex with your boy friend, it is going to be assumed that you loved it, want it as much as he does, and will always be available to have it. This is true; I haven’t been able to find this law, but judging by what I experienced, it's a fact.

After a while I got used to it; not that I remember much about it now. That was a long time ago. I do remember that it wasn’t anything like I had thought it would be; it wasn’t great or bad for that matter. It just was.

What I do remember is that it proved he loved me. You just didn't have sex unless you loved your partner.

I have been told by many people that the phrase "There's a fool born every minute" applies to me. Naive doesn't even come close at times.

I do believe in my heart of hearts that you need maturity and a love that is not of the puppy variety to experience love making in it truest and most beautifully form, I didn't know that then.

Oh good Lord I sound old.

I thought about what I was doing and I knew it was wrong. I just couldn’t bring myself to say no.

Shit, he might leave me.

You know, I'm not sure what I thought would happen to me if he did leave me? Would I really die, would I live out my life in misery never to find love again? I just could not see past this relationship.

I did think about it and it brought to mind a thought. I had to wonder where the hell did my childhood go?

It just didn’t’ seem that long past when I was riding my bike behind the mosquito truck, playing with our super balls in the street or just being silly with our friends in the front yard before it was time to go in for the night.

Catching fire flies and waiting for the ice cream man were what was important to us then, and it hadn't been that long before.

Time has a way of getting away from us. It seemed like just yesterday that I got my period for the first time; scared to death in the sixth grade firehouse classroom. You see, there wasn’t enough room in the middle school for all the classes, so two teachers had rooms in the firehouse.

I loved it there. Mr. Hagopian was awesome; we were lucky to be there with him as our teacher. It was really cool; but not that day.

I was mortified. We didn’t have a nurse in the building and no machines in our bathrooms with supplies so I had to just sit there for the rest of the day, absolutely convinced that everyone knew my little secret. I was sure that I was going to bleed to death right then and there at my desk.

It didn’t matter that it was nothing more than a stain that wasn’t even on my pants, but it was there and I knew that my face told the story. By the end of the day, that would be the news of the day.

It seemed like forever till I got home and was able to tell my mother what had happened to me. Ready as she always was, mom took me upstairs, and in my bottom drawer hidden beneath my winter sweaters was my starter kit.
This was beyond anything I had expected. It all came so neat in a little box. Sanitary napkin; check. Belt, check. Booklet to show you how to use it lest you forgot the movie; check. I was ready to roll.

I was big shit now boy. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends, which I wasted no time in doing. We meet as usual at the end of the street where the old trolley track used to be. It was there, around the old water tower that I told them of my journey into womanhood.

I had to prove it, of course, something that big had to verified. I reached in the side of my pants and pulled up the “belt”. To say the least, my friends were very impressed. I’m not sure what we were all impressed about, but impressed we were.
This was a huge deal.

Times were very different back then. There wasn’t the sex on TV like today, nor video games or the like. We really were innocent. The most I had ever seen in regard to sex was my grandmother’s detective magazines. You know the ones; the drawings were all of women with huge breasts, tiny waists and large lips, always in need of a detective, and the only ads in them were for pumps to make your breasts a cup size larger.

We were naive and innocent, and that was a good thing.

We didn’t worry about getting pregnant, caught with drugs or stealing. We worried about coming home late for dinner, not doing our homework or talking back to our parents or another adult. Those were the things that got us in trouble. Well, I did worry about the Jersey Devil. Honestly. I was sure he existed and knew where I lived. But, that’s for another day….

Now, for those of you too young to remember the “belt”, let me explain it to you.. It was a thin elastic belt that you pulled up over your hips. In the front and back of this “belt” was a metal eyelet as well as in the back. You placed the flag of the napkin and looped it around each hook, thus keeping it in place.

Well, it tried to keep it in place, which it never did. This sanitary belt was nothing more than a torture device conceived by a man who would never have to wear it. Probably the same man who invented the mammogram machine. Try doing that to a guy’s balls or penis to check for a hernia or other ailment. I don’t think so.
Anyway, although I had developed in most areas by the sixth grade, I was still sporting the Brazilian wax look if you know what I mean so I had no worries, for now.

It wouldn’t be long though before I realized what pain really was.

Try walking down the hall in school, acting very nonchalant as to not let on to the boys that you had your period and have the hair of your neither region get caught up in the metal hook. The pain of child birth does not compare to this. It was agony.

I was quite a sight walking down the hall, eyes bulging and legs squirming, hips gyrating, and looking like I had just dismounted a Budweiser Clydesdale, trying to untangle myself from this belt from hell, without letting on what was wrong.
It was becoming very clear to me that growing up and maturing came with drawbacks.

Ahhhhhhh, the joys of being a woman.

So, here I am, back in Illinois all grown up and hating it and loving it all at the same time, with not a clue how to handle it.

We were in love, so what could be the problem?

Time would tell.

As it turns out, John would be first for many things. He was the lucky guy to take my virginity, the first to cheat on me, and the first to propose marriage to me, ring and all...... All this before I entered the tenth grade.