Or you go on Facebook, and you see that one popular kid from high school - the one who asked you back in 11th grade why you have a picture of the PE teacher on your shirt when it's clearly Walter Sobchak and The Dude, and she tries to make fun of you about it but all you're thinking is how much hipper and cooler and more worldly you are, so you walk away mostly confused about how she's supposed to be higher up the food chain than you are - you see that girl works out regularly and has a job in business analytics making six figures a year and goes on vacation and talks about how big of a nerd she is because she took a picture in front of a museum and she's just so fucking happy, like some kind of... put-together asshole.
Or maybe you don't get fired and it's just the opposite - you get promoted at that job you were just supposed to do until the other, better thing came along. And you tell yourself, "hey, I'm supporting myself, fuck the haters" until you see your friends getting their dream jobs, or, even worse, your dream job.
You go to a friend's house and you don't see the wires for the TV anymore and everything is organized and put away and fully decorated and maybe they have a case of freshly-cut flowers and you realize maybe it's time to be embarrassed about still having a futon in your living room.
I like adulthood though. It comes with a driver's license, an ability to rent a car, alcohol, and people taking you seriously when you have no right to be taken seriously. That last thing is so dope. I love when people pay attention to me.
To get to adulthood from childhood we have to go through puberty. Of the three stages I don't think there's even a question adulthood is the best. Would you rather be an adult or a fourteen-year-old? I remember my mom driving me home from a soccer game one day. I was thirteen. And I started crying for literally no reason. Hormones? I mean, we won the game. I got along with my teammates. It was mid season. I played the whole game. My mom panicked when she saw me. Why was her kid crying? She likes for things to make sense. She's very rational. She wants to fix a thing if something is wrong. But how do you fix a thing if you don't know what's wrong? Now when I cry I can tell you why. I have a much better hold of my emotions. That's another really great thing about adulthood.
But things get weird physically too. I have a handle on my body now - sort of. I'm on the pill but I always need to borrow a tampon for my first bleed each month. It's a simple enough explanation - if I prepare for my period, it will not come, and if it does not come, then I am pregnant. I have five weeks of laundry in the basket and clothes on the floor and paintings I bought that need to be hung around the apartment but I don't have any nails even though I work right next to a hardware store. I could not have a baby right now. There's just no way. So I let my superstition play out each month and I always borrow a tampon and look at me now I'm still not pregnant.
I have been afraid of waking up pregnant since I was thirteen. I graduated high school still a virgin. It's just this phobia I have. Still. At 25.
When the Period Fairy first struck my cycle, I was 12. I remember bringing a pad with me into the bathroom at soccer camp. My teammate asked me if I had my period and I told her that it was actually my second period. She had to know I was not a period noob.
My mom and my doctor started to recommend tampons. LOL. Like I'm about to shove something up there and keep it there for eight hours. My doctor gently suggested it. I have never felt more betrayed by a doctor. My mother was more insistent. She said it would be easier for me to move around. She bought tampons with cardboard applicators and told me to stick it up there with my hands and take the cardboard out while I'm having my period time and I was just not into it. No no no, no thank you, no. I am happy with my pads.
My mom kept insisting so I tried it again on a day I didn't have school and she didn't have work. "How does it feel?" She asked.
"Okay," I said. "I feel it a little bit but it doesn't hurt that bad so I'll get used to it."
"No. You did it wrong. You shouldn't feel it at all."
"No, it's in there."
"Not if you feel it. Take it out."
So I took it out and tried again and failed again and went back to my pads.
Still my mom wasn't giving up, so next month I tried it again and I did it! I got it up there! Fully up there! Complete success!
...except the applicator got stuck.
I called my mom into the bathroom and she was pretty grossed out because there's my vagina and there's the tampon string coming out and on the other side is a bloody piece of cotton and there's too many bodily fluids and it's just so gross.
I don't think they tell moms how to deal with your kid's first twelve or twenty periods. On the one hand, my mom wanted to help. On the other, she didn't want to see my period this close.
So I was freaking out because the applicator was stuck and maybe I had to go to the hospital because I was pretty sure this was how you get toxic shock syndrome. And Mom was telling me to just pull it out but I knew this was going to hurt so she had to do it.
And God bless her, but Mom did it. And it was painless and easy and I've been wearing tampons ever since.
A year or so later my mother decided I was a pro now and she was going to save some money by purchasing tampons without applicators. That was obviously a ridiculous notion and I was not, thank you very much, going to use a tampon without some application assistance. I'll use cardboard but I draw the line there.
"That's how they do it in Europe," she said, but we are American and Europeans don't shower or shave so the personal hygiene thing is not their strong suit. I know this isn't true, I know that Europeans shower and shave, but my mom was also wrong because i have never been to a place where I couldn't find a tampon with an applicator - not here, not in Europe, not anywhere. I understand the tampon is a relatively recent invention, and my mom lived in France in 1975. This just further confirms my love of the 21st century.
I loved tampons so much I converted my friends into tampon girls instead of pad girls. One of my friends bled on my sheets at a sleepover while wearing one but remained on that tampon train despite the embarrassment because tampons were just that great. Another friend told me that tampons were a way to lose your virginity (which, as a teenage good girl, is a big part of your human worth) and I couldn't believe a fifteen-year-old could say that with a straight face now that the Internet has been invented and we all have cell phones. And of course, there were rumors that, once you started having sex, you wouldn't enjoy it as much because the tampon would desensitize you.
That, my friend, is a small penis.
Anyway, puberty is confusing and so are social interactions, but now I buy my own tampons and wear down people into becoming my friends, so things are definitely on the up from where I was twelve years ago. I remember getting frustrated with my period when I was younger. I had cramps. I never had a tampon or knew who to ask for a tampon. But now? That monthly reminder that I'm not pregnant? I love it. As a single adult, it's guaranteed to be at least one thing that puts a smile on my face once every four weeks.
"Good job, Caitlin!" My period says. "You may not be as adult as you should be by now, but at least it's just you you have to worry about."
(Stay tuned for the next installment, ten years from now, where I discuss how terrifying parenthood is.)
(Also, this is not an indictment of anyone my age with children - you are just much more mature than I am.)
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