I like working late. I should probably get out more, but the truth is that I like the work that I do. When the initial Covid shutdown happened, almost two years ago, I initially had a hard time with the silence. After nearly two decades of working in trade floor environments, the silence of being home alone was deafening. I replaced the chatter of my coworkers, which I still deeply miss, with the news. I have a set schedule of news programs that I turn on during the workday when I am not on calls. The one challenge is the evening. By seven or eight in the evening, I am completely over news.
Now, I am in a spell of working late into the night, and I need some sort of background noise to drown out the sound of my dying dishwasher that kicks on at nine o’clock in the evening, when our free electricity starts. I am working, so I cannot focus on a meaningful television program. Two days ago, I got the idea to turn on something that I had watched before to keep me company. I chose, Anne with an ‘E’, perhaps, my favorite Netflix show of all time.
It is now around 10:30 PM in the evening, and I am wrapping up my workday, pouring a glass of wine. Anne is hosting tea for the first time after getting her period for the first time. She is about to accidentally serve alcohol to her tea party guest. For those that haven’t watched the series, Anne is an orphan adopted by a brother and sister further along in life, neither of the siblings ever married. She is thirteen at this point in the series. Her adoptive mother, that she thinks of as a dear aunt, allowed her to host a tea in light of her “becoming a woman” as she got her period. The girls are now accidentally drunk. I guess that there would not be an interesting TV series if Anne never got into any sort of trouble.
Prior to the day of her tea party, Anne got her period for the first time. She thought that she was bleeding to death. Her adoptive mother explained that she had become a woman and that it was her “time of the month to flower”. She then went to school and discussed the situation with her girlfriends. Most of the girls had gotten their periods. One girl cried that she had not yet become a woman. They all feared that the boys would know of their situations. They all feared of embarrassment if they were to bleed through their clothes.
I am watching a show that is set almost a hundred years before I got my first period, how is it that it is exactly the same? I hate that the girls in the show fear embarrassment brought on by their periods. I hate that I shared in this fear. I hate that the idea of a girl getting her period is somehow embarrassing. I do not have a daughter. Maybe it is different for the latest generation. I hope so.
It was not that long ago that I felt guilty and embarrassed for being a working mother. That is a topic that I have been meaning to tackle in a blog post for some time. I guess this post is me dipping my toe into that water. I will never again fear embarrassment for any aspect of my life as a woman. I will never again apologize for being a working mother. Stay tuned for that upcoming blog post…