The Flooded Fishbowl

Mortified Pride

August 21, 2010 by Praefish · 5 Comments

We have crossed into a territory that is new to me. I am a woman. I experienced many things as an adolescent, a teenager learning about my body and what was happening to it, how to handle it, what to do, what not to do. All of my experiences from two perspectives – my own, but mostly, a female’s.

I will save you from the stories of angst and pain I suffered. The stories of humiliations I experienced. I will spare you because as an adult I believe that even those I saw during those years of “having it all good” most likely have their own stories of pain and humiliation, just as I suspect you do, too.

My oldest child is a girl, a daughter. So I felt fairly well prepared to assist her when she needed it as she approached that place when we feel like we are aliens in a new body, learning new things about ourselves. Telling her all the urban legends I could remember from my early teen years about what was happening and could or could not happen and how it could or could not happen. You know, biology, the facts.

But this new territory in front of which I stand is a bit scary and startling for me. This is the very same territory before which I have stood just a few short years ago. This time the territory has a new face, it has the face of my oldest boy, my second child.

I ache with pain as I see him go through the halting and haunting moments of hormonal surges through his body. I ache as I watch him struggle with all the confusing feelings. It’s like spinning in infinity at one moment that stops as quickly as it begins. He loves/hates/hurts/laughs all in a moment that feels like going from 90mph to 0mph in half a second. His is struggling to figure it out and balance it against what his head knows.
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