Friends

When I first started working I made friends with a girl named Roseanna.  She was full of energy.  Since, she was of Spanish decent she spoke proper Spanish, not Spanglish.  It was a point of envy and admiration among our co-workers who spoke Spanglish.  So, she was teased for her language skills while I was teased for not know any Spanish.  We were also teased for possessing such light complexions.  Hers was obviously inherited from her Spanish parents and mine was from my mother.  We knew our co-workers weren’t being malicious and liked us each but we bonded over our differences.  And we had a lot of them.

Physically, we only shared one thing in common.  At 5’ we were both short but that was all.  Roseanna had curly black hair, blue eyes, a big smile, and weighed probably about 100 pounds.  I had wavy brown hair, brown eyes, small lips, and weight twice as much as her.  However, she never seemed to notice.

I remember one year during Christmas she insisted on going shopping after work.  For various reasons, I’ve never liked shopping with other people and that day I especially didn’t like the idea of shopping with someone who could fit into everything.  But I went because she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

We stopped in a few stores and while she busied herself with the clothes racks I looked at scarves, hats, purses, jewelry—the things I could fit into.  Finally, in one store she found what she was looking for—a pair of black corduroy shorts.  She stepped out of the dressing room to check herself out and a sale clerk decided to checker her out too.  He walked up and started making small talk.  Of course, I felt like the third wheel and started to sidle away when she turned to me and asked, “Alicia why don’t you try something one?” 

The clerk and I exchanged a look, because nothing in this store will fit.  Neither of us would say it.  He looked contemptuous and I looked guilty.  I told her I didn’t see anything I liked and she persisted not understanding why I didn’t just try something on for fun.  I just kept insisting that I was fine.  She paid for her shorts and we were on our way.

While we sat in the food court sharing fries she persisted in asking me why I wouldn’t just try something on.  I finally told her that nothing would fit me in the stores she went too except for scarves and hats.  After staring at me for what felt like an eternity she asked, “Really?”  She was seriously in shock and I had to explain to her that I really was too big.  She didn’t believe me and was sure I was just imagining things.    And I realized that Roseanna saw me in a way that others—myself included—did not.  She didn’t see my size.  She just saw me, her friend, who would look cute in a dress or a blouse.

Shortly, after our shopping trip Roseanna’s family was transferred out of state and she went with.  So, we never got to go shopping again.  And I always regretted not taking her to the store that carried clothes that fit me.  I think if I had, she would have compliment and encouraged me to embrace my body and pushed me to see how pretty I was.

I think that’s what all friends should do.  Friends should boost you up when you’re feeling low.  Friends should support you when you want to lose weight but not urge you to lose weight.  They should not see the size of your body but the size of your heart. 

Camp Gyo

Periods have always been something akin to Fight Club.  I know you're laughing and I know men are shaking their heads and saying, "Eww, no" but I'm serious.  Men's responses of "eww" just proves it because for most women if you say fight club we roll our eyes and say, "Eww, the movie where they beat the shit out of each other?" 

Still don't believe me well let me prove it.  The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.  First rule of Periods is you don't talk about Periods.  Periods are that thing that women hint at--time of the month, monthly visitor.  Men make crude jokes about it--on the rag, never trust something that bleeds for a week...you get the idea.  The thing is we rarely call it a period or menstruation.  It's this huge taboo subject.

When I was in the fifth grade one of my classmates went to the girls' room and after about five minutes she was screaming hysterically.  She'd gotten her first period and thought she was bleeding to death.  Her mother hadn't told her about periods.  So it was up to some very distraught teachers and a school nurse to explain what was happening to her.  I was lucky because my mother was a little less secretive about her period and while she didn't go into great detail I did know what it was and that I should hate it.  

A few weeks after my classmate's nervous break down the school decided they needed to show this film about "sex education" to all us girls and boys.  They got parental consent forms from each of us and we were separated into a room for girls and a room for boys.  We where shown a terrible film and given an equally unhelpful book neither actually told us a thing about sex.  It was all about body development and maxi-pads.  At recess we compared notes and traded books with the boys.  They weren't told about our periods and we weren't told about their voice changing.  However, we all concluded that the girls got a raw deal in this growing up thing.