Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Judy Blume.

After joining PaperBackSwap, I realized that more than anything, I wanted to revisit my childhood and adolescence. So one of the first books I requested was Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume. I think it's pretty impossible to be a woman my age and not have read Judy Blume as a young girl. I don't think I had read any Judy Blume books since before the blessing known as getting my period for the first time. It was pretty amazing to read how Margaret was so anxious to get her period. She even practiced wearing pads!

Looking back on it, I was pretty anxious too. It was almost a mark of being cool. I had a couple of girl friends named Laci and Shelly, and we all started our periods right after each other. Even though we all started within weeks of each other, whoever started first was more mature and cool, at least in my eyes. It's funny, but now I can't even remember which one of us started first. (Admittedly, I do remember that I started just before or after I turned 12, on a strange, hot day in June. I remember my mom telling me she was thrilled, and I wasn't sure at that moment what there was to be thrilled about.)

Oh, how I could (and still can!) relate to Margaret, a budding young woman stuck in a child's body, afraid to speak out about the boy she really liked because of her friends, subjected to being lied to by her friends, confused about religion. Margaret definitely is in all of us, but it's nice to know that she can be left behind as well.

Unfortunately, like all of us, Margaret wanted to grow up too quickly. Last night I felt like yelling at her, telling her to slow down and enjoy being young. I'm still considered young, but I miss the days of being bored, with nothing better to do than practice kissing. You know what they say about hindsight.