Thursday, August 13, 2009

Underneath this Amarillo Sky

Reading one of the blogs I follow got me thinking on something today. The author talks about how his wife and he talked to his daughter about sex.
Kevin and I were discussing a few things the other day, one them being how my parents never talked to me about anything serious. I never recall my mother talking about relationships with guys, periods or other stuff that goes on with a girl's body as she gets older, sex, not even a simple thing as credit cards and dealing with money.
I was telling Kevin how, when I was around 11 or 12, my mother gave me a book called What's Happening to my Body Book for Girls, that was written the year I was born. The day I got my period, I asked her what it meant, she told me to go get some pads out of the bathroom closet, and I think we went out to dinner that night. Outside of school sessions and health class I never learned any of that stuff. I don't understand why (OK I do, but I don't agree) getting your first period is so exciting and wonderful. My parents never talked to me about relationships with guys. Granted I never went out to do anything in middle school or high school, OK there were a couple times my senior year when I snuck out close to 11PM, but it was only to watch the cops at shift change. I was never encouraged to wear cute clothes. Everything I wore in middle and high school consisted of jeans and medium t-shirts and none of those form fitting t-shirts. I don't think I really started wearing cute clothes (or at least ones that showed my figure) until my sophomore year of college, when I moved out from under their roof. I know I wore a pretty cute summer dress for my high school graduation (which I can still fit in to today), but beyond that I didn't wear any cute dresses. Kevin was saying maybe it was because I didn't show an interest in them, but when you're not encouraged to wear anything like that, even dresses my mother bought me, were more like shapes that she would wear, she's just now beginning to buy me cute clothes (when she buys me clothes). When that's all you know to wear, I think it's kinda hard to be interested. I guess I sorta started branching out my senior year, for Winter Formal that year (dance), I wore a velvet skirt that had slits up both sides to my hips. I love that skirt, wish I had something to wear it to now. My senior prom dress was kinda like a Cinderella dress, not a very full skirt, it was periwinkle and laced up in the back. I loved that dress too.
I've never been in a reltionship until I started dating Kevin, and that was a lot to get used to. I had a few crushes throughout my school years, but nothing beyond staring at and wishing. I do find it pretty cool, that the first time I saw Kevin, I thought I'd love to date that guy. When we got further in our relationship, my mother dropped off an ad for planned parenthood, that's as close as she's ever gotten to talking about sex with me.
And the money thing, my parents never really talked about money. I do recall when I was pretty young and delivered papers (I started in 2nd grade), my dad saying every other paycheck had to be deposited. And then as I got older I was expected to pay for certain things. They never talked to me about credit cards. I got my first credit card sometime in my 2nd year of college, by filling out one of those things you get in the mail. I figured it was time I had my own (my parents gave me one in my name of their account for emergencies and paying for books), and thought I'd fill it out, what was the worst that could happen, they could turn me down and I wouldn't be any worse off. When I was pondering it, the only advice I got was from my roommate at the time, who told me she always made sure she had money in her bank account to cover whatever she wanted to charge.
Kevin mentioned that maybe my mom wanted another boy since she never talked about anything girly with me, not even makeup or how to wear my hair. I had short hair (around my ears or above) until middle school, when one of my friends had long hair and I decided to grow it out. I was never encouraged to dress up in high heels, (my mom didn't own any) or makeup (she also had very little of that) when I was young. I was given Barbies and dolls, and dress up clothes, but she never really encouraged me outside of those things. Looking through my old toys a few weeks ago as we were cleaning for the garage sale, lots of the things I had somewhat paralleled what my brother had. We both had small animals we played with mixing them with our legos and model/diecast cars. We both had K'nex when they came out, my favorite to build was the off-road jeep/vehicle. I loved getting the 1/24 scale cars at the toy store. I loved climbing trees and jumping off the playground equipment at school.
It makes me wonder if that's why I'm always so intrigued about the little girls in the store I work at and how recently I've been thinking if I had kids I want a little girl. Not to totally enamour in pink or girly stuff, but to just experience being a little girl again.

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