Again, I am betrayed by my naivety about my own body.

We are sitting in my aqua Oldsmobile Achieva. We are parked in front of his house. I wonder who is inside the house. His dad isn’t home very often. His sister may be inside though. He doesn’t seem to care.

He is leaning over the middle of the car. His hand is behind my head, in my hair, and his lips are on mine. I really like kissing.

N has been my boyfriend for several months. Several of my friends are flabbergasted by the amount of things I haven’t done. I don’t really know what else could be happening. The idea of his finger in my body sounds gross. The idea of touching him, touching “it”, sounds gross. Kissing is fun. He is good at it. I think I am good at it, too.

Other girls have done other things. They use their mouths. They touch themselves. They touch their boyfriends, or boys they’d like to make their boyfriends. I don’t find that appealing. Why would you want to share your private parts with other people? They are private for a reason. I should probably be focusing on the making out that is happening in my car. I can’t help but wonder about the things I can’t fathom.

His hand has left my hair and has found my knee. He is slowly moving his hand up from my knee towards my lady parts. What is he doing? I keep kissing him.

His hand grazes over my pants, over my panties. What the hell? There is a feeling buzzing from deep down, up my abdomen. I push his hand away.

“Just let me,” he says.

“Why?” I reply.

“Let me show you.”

I am really unsure what he could possibly be showing me. I liked it when he touched me. I am not sure that I should.

His hand again finds its way between my thighs, outside of my clothes. He rubs a bit. It feels good. It feels strange.

I hear myself breathing deeply. He is kissing me, and touching me. I am kissing him, and grasping the driver’s chair.

The buzzing is building. It is getting stronger. I am confused. What is this? It feels like spilling over, and the feeling courses through my body. My body is twitching, and he has a look of smug pleasure on his face. He is proud of what he has done.

What has he done? I feel strange. Vulnerable. Confused.

“What just happened?” I ask him sheepishly.

“That was an orgasm,” he replies.

“How did that happen?”

“It happened because I rubbed your clit.”

“My what?”

“You should go home and try that on yourself.”

“Do you do that to yourself?”

“Yes. Well, it’s not the same. But, yes, I masturbate.”

“I didn’t know this existed. I am not sure I want you to do that again.”

He kisses me. “I won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

I believe him. I guess.

He gets out of the car, tells me he’ll call me soon, and closes the door.

I drive the half-a-minute drive back home. I fear the look my parents will give me. They will know what happened. Why didn’t they tell me that happens? I pull into the driveway, try to look less embarrassed, and get out of the car. I walk around back, and let myself in. Mom is in the kitchen. She tells me to take a shower and go to bed. Does she know?

I stand in front of the mirror. I look at myself. I wonder what all I don’t know about myself, my body. What does God think about what I have done? I will never let that happen again.

Then, my prayers were answered.

I run across the street back home. Time had gotten away from me. Alyssia and I were choreographing dances in her bedroom. I hadn’t realized it was almost time for ballet.

“Sorry Mom! I am here now!” I yell through the house as I climb the stairs to my little room. I open my drawers, grab my navy leotard, my pink tights, my navy elastic belt, and my navy wrap skirt. I have to get moving or I will be late. Ms. Carol hates it when people are late. I hate to be the person who gets there last.

I pull off my shirt. Pull down my pants. I am moving with so much speed I almost miss it. As I pull up my tights I look down at the bundle of clothes on the floor. “What is that!?” I think. I only know to do one thing. “MOM!!!!!!!!!” I scream as loud as I can.

I hear her running up the stairs. I hope she doesn’t bring baby Kate in here. I don’t what anyone to see what I am seeing. I might be dying.

“What’s wrong?” Mom asks as she opens the door.

“Look,” I hold up my panties for her to see.

“I thought that might be what was happening,” she says calmly and with love. She has a big smile on her face. I am confused by her happiness. She is holding a yellow colored square pillow in her hands. She hands it to me. I have no idea what to do with it.

“Is THIS my period?” I ask. It is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. This is not at all “beautiful and natural.” I feel like those stupid movies completely lied about what was going to happen. I feel gross.

“Yes, that’s your period. Let’s go to the bathroom, and I will show you how to put that pad on. Grab a pair of clean panties,” she says as she walks towards the bathroom. I hope Nick and Jeff are still outside. I don’t want them to see me. Being a woman is not what I expected and my brothers will be able to see me for the freak that I am.

“Do I have to go to ballet? I don’t want to go anymore,” I ask my mom as she unfolds the yellow pillow to reveal the white thing that is to go in my underwear. It’s thick and looks uncomfortable. I really don’t want to put that in my clothes. “I can’t wear panties during ballet,” I remind my mom. I imagine what that would look like. A 12 year old with panties bunched up under my tights, giving myself a mega wedgie with a pad and my small leotard. I am years younger than the other girls in class. Think of the ridicule. Ugh. I already get in trouble for my butt sticking out, what would they say to my pillow butt panty problem.

“You don’t have to go today. You haven’t been feeling very well today anyway. That’s why I suspected you would need a pad. Sometimes our periods also come with side effects: cramps, moodiness, cravings. You have been pretty sensitive and you have been hurting in your low belly,” she informs me about what has been happening for days in my body. I had no idea that was a part of the bloody mess problem. I feel more disgusting. I feel like I have no control over my body.

“It’s all really natural, Britt. You will get used to the things your body is doing,” she tries to comfort me. I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. I feel betrayed by my body. I wasn’t adequately prepared for this. It’s not at all what I thought it would be.

I walk out of the bathroom. My mom takes my dirty clothes downstairs to wash the blood out of them. I go into my room, and lay down on the floor. I curl up in a ball and cry.

The Child is the Mother of the Woman

There is a good little poem by Wordsworth with the line, “The Child is the father of the Man,” a compelling verse that gives a sense of continuity through life cycles. The reader gets the sense that some of the truest, purest forms of identity were already present in early childhood, and there is a certain integrity of personhood seen in the life trajectory. Author Madeleine L’Engle says that “The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.”

For some of us, this idea is a marvelous comfort. For others, a curse. For all of us, there is something haunting, something that perhaps raises questions around our pesonal narratives and identity formation.

Claire, dressed as a mummy for nothing other than ninth grade stupidity.

Brittany and I started talking, then grumbling, then writing, and finally throwing up this blog because we discovered that, like other women we’d talked to, we could no longer deny all the ages, all the selves we’ve been, in our spiritual formation and awareness of self and sexuality. It’s so much easier to leave the sweepings under the rug, try to forget, or treat our pasts with judgment or mocking. The thing is, that’s the attitude that seems to have landed us, and many of the women we know, in this painful and isolated place of ignoring the complexity of our sexual, spiritual selves

From our upbringings, heavily saturated by rich and diverse faith in God, we came away with a bit of perfectionism,a strong dose of the ought-to’s. I suspect that mine came from a limited narrative of life’s possibilities, particularly where God and sex were concerned. A handful of voices set the tone for my relationships to others, particularly boys (later, men) and the divine, and I was unaware that alternatives were available, that there is no set script, or that grace abounds in unexpected places.

In this online space, we want to tear up the script, do the spring cleaning, pull off the layers. Think of any freeing metaphor that draws you into life, lightness, and the courage to name and love the child that birthed you. Britt and I aren’t trained therapists or spiritual directors. We haven’t finished the task of human being. We just believe that in making safe spaces for truth telling, and practicing acknowledgement without judgment, healing begins to take place, and that grace will abound in unexpected places.

So we’re listening. Who are you? What happened? What did you learn?