Day 235: Are You There God, It's Me Margaret

Are You There God, It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume.  ISBN: 9780689841583.

I very much identified with Margaret's struggle with religion.  Although I was raised Unitarian Universalist, and I still am, it's not a religion where you can point to a book and say, "all of that."  There are as many different kinds of UU as there are sects of Christianity.  It's extremely difficult trying to explain this to other people your age who have never even had contact with a Jewish person, especially when you are between the ages of eight and fourteen and pretty much all of your opinions are from your parents/friends/church pastor/horoscope and so you have no real reason behind them other than "Uh, they're the right ones because people tell me they're right."

I got so frustrated with trying to explain what my religion was to people who made no effort to "get it" that I eventually just got fed up and started saying, "yeah, yeah it does mean that I worship Satan and eat babies."  This was an act of desperation to get them to leave me alone, and sadly it worked.  I say sadly because for me it meant quite a few years of being lonely and misunderstood, and sad for them because it allowed them to keep their eyes firmly shut against the rest of the world.  On the one hand, I really should have been more open and patient in explaining what my religion meant to me; on the other hand I am and pretty much always have been mostly a private practitioner.  My relationship with god is very personal, and I don't feel like I should have to explain it or defend it to anyone else, and it was an especially unfair thing to have to go through so young and in such a hostile environment.  It very nearly killed my soul. 

I also had a grandmother who was very concerned with said soul and wanted me to convert to Southern Baptist.  We didn't see her very much, but it became almost painful to visit her after about the age of five.  Staying overnight meant I had to say prayers before going to bed and staying during the weekend meant I had to go to church.  This got more and more awkward the older I got because I very much disagreed with many of the things her faith preached.

I haven't had to deal with any of these issues recently, because most of the communities I belong to at the moment are all too polite to even ask what religion I am, and strangely, now I kind of wish I had someone to talk about it with.

Day 234: Are You There God, It's Me Margaret

Are You There God, It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume.  ISBN: 9780689841583.

First off, tiny picture is tiny because it's the only one I could find of this cover.  Apparently it was unpopular, or an alternate cover, because the only images I found were practically thumbnail size.  It'll have to do.  Also, for the whiners, I'm not going to bother linking a review to this one, because I think everyone born in the last 30 years knows what this book is about.

I very much remember being Margaret's age.  Obviously there were things that were very different given the time this was written, but for the most part I would say it accurately depicts that very troublesome period of growing up.  I don't remember wanting to be the first one who got her period or worrying if I would be the last one.  This probably had something to do with the fact that most of the people I was close to were actually closer to menopause than their first menstruation.  I had just moved from California to Oklahoma, and it was just easier to make friends with the teacher than with kids my own age.  They all pretty much knew each other from kindergarten, and having some new kid show up five years later did not make them particularly eager to be friends, especially as I was somewhere between 4'8"-5'2".  In other words, I was freakishly tall and they probably associated that with authority on some level, and this is the start of the age where authority is not to be trusted.

I definitely was one of the first kids in my age group to get my period.  Although, I don't think it was really until 8th or 9th grade where I really "needed" to wear a bra, and I'll be honest, I went without most days in undergrad because A) hippy school and B) bras are expensive so they didn't wear out as quickly and C) when you're an A cup, hardly anyone notices anyway.  But there wasn't really any special feeling attached with it.  My mother didn't make a big deal out of me getting my period.  I didn't make a big deal out of it, although I kind of wanted someone else to.  A fancy dinner or something would have been nice.  I was pretty young when it happened, I remember it was in October when I was 10 because it was the first year I went as a grim reaper (I wore the costume 2 more times).

A lot of girls and women complain about their period.  Personally, I have never really found it to be that big of a deal, even when I was 14 and my flow was particularly heavy (this was the time I became a vegetarian and the whole borderline anemia thing REALLY helped me out there).  It was inconvenient, but it's not like it didn't go away, and the light days are practically unnoticeable.  I will say, as I've gotten older the cramping has gotten worse, and it's really annoying.  Also I sometimes have the urge to eat everything in sight (more so than usual even).  But I have to tell you, I actually breathe a sigh of relief every time I get my period.

A lot of this has to do with being sexually active, but some of it also has to do with my body telling me that I'm "normal."  I like knowing that my body is regulating itself in such a way that I am producing this function that happens once every 28 days, and when it doesn't do so that there is something wrong with my body, or something has changed enough to affect my regularly scheduled program.  Call me weird, but I think women have a big leg up in that area over men.  Their first sign that something is wrong with that area of their body is peeing blood.  Which would you rather have: no blood when you're expecting it, or blood when you've never had it there?

I guess I just never really got why that was one of the "negatives" of being a woman.  It doesn't prevent me from taking certain jobs or voting or getting an education or body specific healthcare.  I mean, the worst thing about being a woman is that men still treat us like women first instead of people.