I wake up as suddenly as if someone has yelled into my ear. For a moment, I’m disoriented, befuddled with sleep, trying to get my bearings. It’s still dark outside, and everything is quiet. What woke me? Then I become aware of the warm stickiness. Shit. I switch on the light and reluctantly lift the duvet. There is blood everywhere. It looks like somebody had committed a crime in my bed while I was asleep. I stare at it momentarily in horrified fascination when I suddenly remember my mother’s words. Thirty years ago, at 13, I got my first period. Bewildered and vaguely embarrassed, I went to her for help. She gave me pads and tampons (which I wouldn’t use for years because tampons intimidated me) and her trademark tough love pep talk that is her parenting style. She asked me how much I was bleeding, a question I had no idea how to answer. “I don’t know,” I remember saying to her. “I have nothing to compare it to.” “Well, just so you know, sometimes you’ll bleed like a stuck pig. Just be prepared.”
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