And so it begins

Well, I'm out of the starting gate.  I have written so far today, 2,691 words.  Can I tell you I'm terrified??

Here's a sample of today's writing.  Remember, lots of editing needs to happen!  The main idea is to get the thoughts down and they can be rearranged and made to flow beautifully later!!

I was eleven that summer and the day we moved into our new home, I got my first period.  My mother was so excited she called her brother to tell him that her little girl had become a woman.  I remember being really embarrassed by her doing that.  It seemed like such a gross, yet personal thing and it certainly wasn’t something I wanted anyone male to know!  Needless to say, my mother was the only one excited about it.  It was just one more thing that made me different in my eyes. 

When we had lived in California, I had attended a private Lutheran school.  Now, in our new town, there was no private Lutheran school, so I went into the public school system.  The little bit of teasing I had endured in California didn’t hold a candle to what I went through in Maryland.  Public school children here were so much different than the kids I had grown up with in my rather sheltered life.  On the west coast, I endured an occasional mean spirited comment about being overweight, while on the east coast, it was rare that a day went by without someone saying something to me or about me. 

I hated it and felt lost and alone.  The friends I made were in my neighborhood or on my bookshelves.  As a child, I had always been an avid reader and now especially, I could easily lose myself in such tales as “The Black Stallion”, “My Friend, Flicka” and “Misty of Chincoteague”.  I was completely infatuated with horses.  Maybe it was because they could run so fast and it didn’t matter what size the rider was, she could go as fast as the wind upon a trusty mount.  Reading also isolated me and protected me.  Books didn’t judge and they took me to wonderful places where friends were friends forever and always and no one moved away.

My parents soon realized that public school and I were not getting along quite so well, so they decided to try to give me a little of what I had always known, though it was one of the most misguided things they had ever done.  They enrolled me in private school…private catholic school.  Suddenly, I had to wear uniforms that consisted of a dress/jumper and a white blouse, knee socks and black shoes.  What was even worse was the fact that every week, each class went to a mass held in the church.  They went to confession and took communion, but I was not permitted to partake of any it because I was not catholic.  I would sit in the pew alone, while the rest of my class went through the familiar ritual.  I felt singled out and self conscious and everyone was aware that I was not permitted to participate.

I was struggling to make friends at this new school and it didn’t take me long to find out that either sixth grade girls or catholic girls knew a lot about sex that my little life had not permitted me to know.  One day, a few of the older girls cornered me on the playground to give me a “sex test” that consisted of a couple of questions.

I flunked.

They all had their laugh at my embarrassment and I went home and told my mother, who in turn, went out and purchased me a book with animated pictures of naked people in it that explained about how babies were made.  Ironically, I remember how the woman in the book was thin and lovely and the man had a bit of a beer belly. 

Another day, I was coming out of one of my classes, when Floyd, a boy who was known for being in persistent trouble, reached over, grabbed my breast and twisted it, while yelling “Titty twister!”  I was still one of a few girls who had even started growing breasts and for anyone to point out what I considered to be one of my shames was terribly embarrassing.  The school told my mother that Floyd was a bit of a special case and that they couldn’t do anything about it.

It wasn’t too long after that our parents put the house on the market, sold it, and we moved back to California in what was about to be another difficult transition.  Kids are fickle and when their friend moves away, their lives do not stop because they know other people and had no need to start over.