I love my dawra [cycle].
I call it dawra.
I don’t like using the word “period,”
Because it makes me feel as if I’m ashamed of it.
It’s one of those words we say in another language,
Because we’re too embarrassed of it.
I refer to it as my cycle because I’m not embarrassed by it.
I was old when I got my period for the first time.
I was the last one to get it at school.
I was 15 years old.
womanhood, period, body image, gender identity
When I was a kid,
Mommy would always tell me that God would only start judging me for my actions when I got my first period.
Before that,
My slate was clean,
Because in front of God,
I was still a baby: clean and innocent.
But when I got my first period,
That was it.
We’d be the same.
I’d be a woman.
Grown up and aware,
And accountable for all my actions,
Just like her.
I didn’t know a thing about periods.
When I asked, all I got was its definition from the dictionary.
“Menstruation is a physiological change that the female body goes through during puberty if the egg isn’t fertilized.”
I didn’t understand a word.
My sister, who is 3 years younger than me,
Got her period 6 months before I did.
She was 11 years old then,
And I was 14.
I got my period at the end of elementary school,
During the summer vacation.
I didn’t know what it was.
I thought I was sick,
Or had some sort of problem.
I asked my mother in tears.
“It’s normal,” she said.
She didn’t explain anything.
“Normal how?” I asked her.
She still didn’t explain anything to me.
My parents explained to me in detail everything about puberty,
Before it happened.
They were psychologically preparing me for it,
So that I wouldn’t be taken by surprise.
They were also laying the groundwork for the social and religious obligations,
That accompany puberty.