Category Archives: Age

May 8, 2012 · 11:40 am

The first time I held a baby

The first baby I held was in the summer I was 13. My 12 day old cousin was small and warm in my arms. My aunt had asked me if I wanted to hold her and my parents encouraged me, so I took her in my arms. She was so warm in my cold arms. She’d wiggle in my arms and look at me with half closed eyes. I think it’s a memory I’ll always remember.

While I held her I listened to my father and his sister talk. She told him how my other cousins had come to see her as well. It had been right after the birth so she had lightly complained about my cousin Madison. “Of course she wanted to hold the baby” I was confused about what she meant, but I didn’t ask.

Later I thought about it and I thought about whether it was normal for a young girl to want to hold a baby. It seemed my aunt thought so. I wondered if I was offered to hold the baby because I was a girl or if I was expected to want to. I was very confused for quite a while, though I never said anything.

Around the time I had a school friend who liked to talk about growing up to have babies. We would spend our time together talking about baby names and what they would be like. It seems weird to me now, but at the time it was completely normal. I felt confused about the whole thought of babies, after that.

My Mum had told me times before that she never wanted children, and how it was because of her husband that I was born. I was very young when she first said this to me, but I don’t think I understood till I was much older. When I did I felt so hurt, like someone had hit me. And so, still very young, I decided I would never have a baby. My Mum didn’t respond when I told her this, but my dad told me he was kind of disappointed to not have grand kids.

I didn’t know how I felt about their reactions or about that child I had held years ago, but I think I’ve come to terms with my self. I just don’t know if I want to have a baby. I know that if I do decide to have a child I’ll defiantly be the most loving parent I never had. I’m still young and I have much more time to think it over and I will take all the time I need.

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June 25, 2010 · 8:55 am

The First Time I Felt Like A Woman

There is a great poem by Rudyard Kipling, “If”, it’s about the qualities of a man, a checklist of the things a man should be. I have never come across anything similar for women, and it has always made wonder, what are the qualities or experiences that mark the journey from girl to woman? There are a few generally recognized milestones but I have never felt that any of these were significant in my development towards womanhood.

When I first started to grow boobs, they came out in hard little lumps that frightened me and prompted me to ask my mother a few carefully worded and inconspicuous questions about whether people of any age could get breast cancer. Once I’d stewed over the lump situation for several weeks, and on more than one occasion imagined my own horrific struggle with breast cancer and eventual death, I realized that I had to raise the concern with my mother openly. She too was shocked and worried about the unusual growths on my chest, which led to my father and our family doctor being brought into the horror. After a medical examination and what felt like a million awkward moments and conversations it was concluded that this was really just my entry into puberty.

When I first got my period, it shocked me to the core, and I waited almost an entire day before hurriedly spurting the news out to mom in a panic. I was the first of my friends to experience this and so felt quite alone, irritated and generally unimpressed with the whole saga.

Through all of high school and the first few years of university I was grateful that I did not have to endure any more of these monumental milestones that everyone told me were the stepping-stones to womanhood, but which for me were nothing more than horrific and awkward inconveniences in my otherwise confident and happy life. Then I met him, the guy who for the first time, I wanted to have sex with. I trusted him implicitly and we were in love – what better combination for my first sexual experience? However being the belt and braces girl who I always have been, I knew I had to go on the pill and this prompted yet another horribly awkward conversation (thankfully over the phone this time) with my mom; a trip to the local Grahamstown doctor and a visit to the san to collect my prescription. The first time sex itself was good, not the perfect experience that Hollywood movies always depict though. I learnt that sex can be awkward too and requires a significant amount of communication and practice. He was sensitive and caring though and always more concerned with my satisfaction than his own. But still, I did not feel any more of woman than I had the day before.

All these milestones that I had heard people discuss and seen depicted in movies had for me ranged from slightly to heart-wrenchingly awkward and I did not feel anymore womanly than that lumpy-chested 11-year-old girl imagining her own imminent death through cancer.

Today I pay my own rent, I have a job and pay taxes, I was asked to contribute to a first time writing project for WOMEN, but most of the time I don’t feel like a woman at all. It really hit me though when the editor and originator of this writing group sent out the story suggestions she had received from the contributors: “the first time I lost a child”, “the first time I realized that I was going to be a single mother”, “the first time I gave birth”. These women that I have never met have experienced so much that I have not yet even begun to touch on in my short life, and I realized how much I still don’t know. Can I claim to be part of the same group as these fiercely brave individuals who know things and have done things that I cannot yet begin to grasp?

Things still shock me, people still shock me, all the time. I am not yet the woman I want to be, and sometimes I’m not even sure that I know who that woman is. This story will have to be a “to be continued” as being a woman is so much more than having boobs or having sex. It’s more than being grown up and paying bills. It comes from experience and confidence that can only be achieved through living life and coping through all the shit and heartache that life throws at you.

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June 16, 2010 · 9:49 am

My First Time Turning Thirty

Nobody prepares us for our adult lives. Some people slip into adulthood naturally. I on the other hand feel as though I was struck on the side of the head.  My thirtieth birthday is now less than a month away and these past six months leading up to the ‘big birthday’ has been more challenging than I expected.

I have watched friends turn thirty. Some have agonised over the perfect party for months, stressing themselves and their families out to the point of fights and tears. Others have decided on the perfect arrangements, but felt a sense of emptiness when the day arrived and nothing felt right. I have watched this and been determined to avoid it by deciding on and arranging a simple party. Even I, however, have been unable to escape the reality check. I have unavoidably become aware of the fact that I am no longer a child.

This awareness affects my life in small ways. I wonder sometimes if I can actually justify crying over silly little things anymore. I find myself using the phrase, ‘well now that I am older I think/feel….’ I also look at myself in the rear-view mirror now and I notice the lines around my eyes.

In my earlier twenties I think that I was focused on independence. I wanted to be left to my own devices, I wanted to catch the train to Johannesburg on my own, I didn’t want to cook dinner, I felt irritable that my in-laws didn’t understand me. I didn’t really know what I believed in, but I knew it wasn’t what everyone else did. A form of arrogance, right? Maybe it just seemed that life had no deadlines or goalposts. One day things would get sorted out. One day I would live in a beautiful home. One day I would buy fantastic clothing and celebrate my life. One day I would be happy. There was plenty of time to be frivolous.

I sometimes wonder if the decisions that I make at thirty in response to this existential crisis are going to determine the course of the rest of my life. Or is it not that important? Will the decisions that I make now affect the way that I think and behave when I am ninety-five years old? Do I perhaps understand a bit of what my grandmother felt in the last years of her life?

She once said to me regretfully that her life had rushed by so quickly. She seemed to lose hope at the end. It was too late to change. It is very frightening to know that she lived with a disappointment that was all-encompassing at the end. It makes me think that perhaps this birthday is not so unimportant after all.

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