The first time I got my period, I was 12 years old and in the seventh grade. I was honestly sort of excited to have finally gotten it because in my mind, starting to menstruate made me seem more grown up (which isn’t necessarily false.) The morning after my first ever cycle started was the beginning of a nightmare that I was definitely not prepared for.
I remember waking up before school that morning and being genuinely traumatized at how heavy my flow was. It not only shocked me but also my mom because I was literally five feet and eighty pounds at the time, so my enormously heavy flow was not something that either of us had predicted. Even though she was shocked at my abnormal flow, my mom still sent me off to school with nothing but a few panty liners.
I felt sick to my stomach riding on the bus to school, for the cramps that I was feeling were indescribably painful. Baring through the pain, I went to homeroom even though my gut feeling told me to go to the nurse. Halfway through my class, I became super uncomfortable and felt that something was really wrong. I scooted back in my chair and looked down at where I had been sitting and saw a huge blood stain.
As all of the color drained from my face and my heart beat out of my chest, I naively tried to rearrange how I was sitting in an attempt to stop the blood from continuing to stain my chair. The position I chose was “criss-cross applesauce” except I only tucked one leg underneath me. The best part about my master plan to stop my blood flow, was that I wound up sitting directly on my LIGHT PINK uggs! You guessed it, my period blood stained those as well. Except, I hadn’t noticed until one boy in my class shouted, literally loud enough for everyone could hear, “Briele, is that blood on your shoes?!”
Of course, I tried to play it cool and responded that I was painting my bedroom red the night before (genius I know); I have never been more embarrassed in my entire life. A few minutes later, I strategically got up from my chair and placed my books over the stain and excused myself to go to the nurse. After hysterically crying from embarrassment, I asked the nurse to call my dad to pick me up, who, I kid you not, walked into the nurse’s office carrying… a towel. My poor dad, he had no idea what he was getting himself into.
Although I was so mortified by this situation that I stayed home from school for the rest of that week, I easily laugh and joke about it now. Embarrassing moments happen to the best of us, and as much as we think people will remember it, I promise you that they won’t.