I got my period for the first time when I was 11 years old.
I wasn’t taken by surprise.
I didn’t get scared.
Mama had always made me get her pads ever since I was very little.
And she had told me that when girls get older,
They bleed a little every month.
She told me it was something completely normal.
That it happened to all girls.
When classmates started telling me they had gotten their periods,
I figured I’d be getting mine soon too.

I woke up one morning wondering how I’d tell mama when I got my period.
That very same day, at night, I got my period.
I didn’t think at all, or prepared anything to say.
I just went and told mama right away.
Mama gave me a pad to wear and joked around with me.
She told me that starting today, God would start holding me accountable for my actions.

Baba always bought me pads,
And he’d bug me and mama and tease us,
especially during Ramadan when we weren’t fasting.
I was embarrassed at first,
but bit by bit,
I started to laugh about it,
and tease him that I could eat while he had to fast.

When my younger brother asked why mama and I weren’t fasting,
She told him that when girls grow up,
Something happens to them,
And God allows them to break their fast.
She also made him buy us pads,
So he wouldn’t feel embarrassed when he got older,
And his future wife asked him to buy some.