Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume (2 page)

Yes, what my mom had once forbidden was now a source of mother/daughter bonding. When I shared this irony with my audience, they were dumbfounded. “What was so scandalous?” asked a particularly blunt sophomore. “Katherine didn't even give him a blow job.” They were even more surprised when I told them that
Forever
remains one of the most banned books by parents and educators. Of course, these conflicting attitudes regarding teen sexuality are reinforced in the media, which depicts our nation's youth as being equally torn between public purity pledges and private rainbow parties.

I'm on the more liberal side of the ideological divide, so I picked up
Forever
that day in the library thinking it would be nothing more than a nostalgic hoot. A quaint throwback to the era of fondue parties, “queers,” and VD. And yes, as I read it for the first time in its entirety, I chuckled at the seventies-style Public Service Announcements I had originally skipped over in favor of more salacious material. Like when Katherine's grandmother—her grandmother!—sent pamphlets from Planned Parenthood and encouraged her to go on the pill. Or when her mother wanted to have a heart-to-heart talk about a newspaper survey on the subject of sexual liberation. And when Katherine's acquaintance, Sybil—the nympho genius from the infamous first sentence—got pregnant because she made the most heinous error of all: sex without love.

And yet despite the infrequent lapses into corniness, Judy Blume's perspectives on teen sex were indeed more progressive than I had expected. Here was a seventeen-year-old female narrator who knew her desires were natural and didn't deny them to herself or her boyfriend. In an era when even pro-sex advocates focus more on
Girls Gone Wild
-style provocation than actual pleasure, Katherine's candor and unapologetic lust struck me as revolutionary. Specifically, here's what I had missed about
Forever:

1. Katherine described losing her virginity as a “letdown.”

2. Katherine “came.” Without foreplay, from intercourse alone. Multiple times.

3. Katherine checked out Ralph-the-Penis not because Michael pressured her to but because
she
wanted to.

Now, all these years later, I realized getting up close and personal with the contents of my first boyfriend's tightie-whities had been totally out of the question. I know this sounds bizarre—and it is—but in three years of dating, I never so much as sneaked a peek, let alone studied B.'s penis with scientific interest. And yes, this means that I never performed that certain sexual act that the oh-so-jaded millennial sophomore took for granted. Never. Not before, during, or even after we did
it.
Which we did, after more than two years of dating, a few weeks after both of our seventeenth birthdays, on an overnight retreat for peer leaders at a religious campground. (Sorry, Mom and Dad.) While the actual act turned out to be less than what I'd hoped for, at least my devirginization at a faith-based gathering was steeped in irony.

I can identify with Katherine's anticlimactic deflowering. And yet while she was honest about how it was more of a relief to have it over and done with than anything else, I lied to myself (and one or two confidantes) by turning my first time into an exquisite body-and-soul transforming experience that it never was and wouldn't be until years later with the man I married.

It wasn't because I was inhibited by the classic virgin/whore dilemma or the threat of a bad reputation. And despite my filmstrip indoctrination, I wasn't worried about pregnancy (or STDs for that matter) because I was vigilant about protection. Nor was I still haunted by that first hilarious glimpse at Mr. Rock-n-Cock in
Playgirl.
No, it wasn't even the capital P for Penis that made me so uneasy about sex and my first love.

 

Forever…

 

Katherine and Michael believed in the first-and-only vows of everlasting love. When the newspaper survey asked a question about how the relationship would end, Katherine was deeply offended by the query. B. would have been, too.

He told me many times that I was his female equal, and he was wrong. B. was far more popular than I was, and I took some comfort in my elevated status by association. He was good-natured and charismatic. He was as adept at being the sensitive guy who listened to girls' troubles as he was at engaging in grossed-out guy humor. I was moody, quick to judge, and used sarcasm to shield typical teenage insecurities. His body was amazing, with the carved-
in-stone musculature of a natural athlete, and he had no shortage of girls who would have been more than happy to do anything for him in and out of bed. As for me, if any other guys in high school thought I was hot, I certainly never knew about it. These disparities might have been why we weren't considered for Class Couple in our high school yearbook. I wouldn't have even voted for us.

But I guess we were well matched in the sense that we were considered the male and female Most Likely to Succeed. We were both ambitious straight-
A students, three-sport varsity athletes who rounded out our college applications with a long list of extracurriculars. Maybe this was enough for B. He was so convinced that I was The One that he repeatedly reminded me in furtive late-night phone confessions and in tightly folded notes he left for me in the pocket of his varsity jacket—the one that he said I didn't wear often enough. But usually he'd gasp promises in my ear during frenzied sessions of making out (and more):
We're meant to be together forever.
Less often—but often enough—he told me if I ever broke up with him, he would kill himself. The vein in his forehead bulged, and my bicep turned white in his grip.

Before asking Michael to drop his pants so that she could examine Ralph-the-Penis, Katherine confessed, “I want to see everything…I want to know you inside out.” The truth is, I didn't want to know B. inside out. In a way, the less I knew, the better. This emotional detachment was indistinguishable from my physical detachment when we were intimate, an odd not-really-there feeling that I needed in order to cope with this intense relationship for which I was not at all prepared yet couldn't bring myself to get out of. Unlike Katherine, I thought about how our relationship would end all the time. And it never went well.

So what makes
Forever
still relevant for me isn't the genius nymphomaniac, the famously personified penis, or any other dirty detail. It's what the novel says about love—especially first love—and how it dies.

Katherine bravely ended her first relationship because she wanted to experience physical and emotional passion with someone else. She was no doubt emboldened by the knowledge that someone else was already waiting for her in the form of Theo, the hunky tennis instructor she met during her summer away from Michael. “I thought of pretending,” Katherine said after she reunited with her boyfriend and realized she wanted out. “I'm no good at pretending. And anyway, pretending isn't fair.” I knew that, too. And yet the good girl in me pretended.

After six months with B., I pretended that I wasn't curious to kiss the cocky actor I met at a summer arts camp. After a year, I pretended that I wasn't intoxicated by the class lothario, a poet/addict who went out of his way to flirt with me in front of B. After two years, I pretended that I wasn't completely taken by a shy, smart sophomore who once dated B's younger sister. For nearly three years, I pretended that I saw a future for us because I was afraid of what would happen in the aftermath of our breakup. But I wasn't very good at faking it, either, and I spent the greater portion of my high school years acting like a bitch, blaming every frustrated attraction on too much PMS or not enough sleep. Why B. put up with this, especially with so many other options available, I'll never understand. Perhaps he was driven by the same fears of what would happen if he stopped.

I'm not sure when or how we broke up, and I would be making it up if I said otherwise. I remember a protracted series of dramatic fights and exhausting crying fits, of jealous flirtations and violent empty threats, and a failed attempt (his) at one last boozy fling for old time's sake. I went to my senior prom with B.'s best friend, an arrangement that indicates we split well before graduation. I cannot recall the final break, and this monumental event is mysteriously absent from the pages of my journal. But I don't think I've blocked out the details as a defense mechanism. I prefer to believe that I've let go of the most bitter memories because I didn't need to hang onto them.

Not too long after high school, I fell in love again. I had my heart broken. I later regretted not sleeping with someone I cared about deeply and then got involved with someone else who should have never been more than just a friend. I withheld empty promises of tomorrow. And finally, I made the only lifelong vow worth believing in.

I moved on. And B. did, too.

I still can't help but wish my mom had let me read
Forever
from start to finish instead of showing me that lame filmstrip. By the last chapter, it's clear that Katherine and Michael got over each other. Their lost love wasn't a tragedy. It was inevitable. And if I had read more than just the good parts, maybe I would've mustered the courage to break up with B. sooner, sparing us both many tears and much pain in the process.

Then again, maybe not.

Probably not.

We were fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old and had no clue what we were doing. We were each other's trial and error, as all first loves are. And I'm not convinced Judy Blume's wisdom would have helped one bit back then.

I was at the library to return the book—my husband browsing down the shelves, our three-year-old son grabbing my hand—when I realized that I'd never noticed the ellipses in the title:
Forever
…Only after a few decades of living, of loving and being loved in return, can you comprehend that
Forever
…means something very different than
Forever.
Only then can you understand that any vow uttered by an adoring adolescent is accompanied by invisible ellipses. “Forever…Then. Now.”

Someone else's birthday
isn't exactly a milestone that's supposed to remain ingrained in your memory forever. Your first day of kindergarten, the day you got your braces off, senior prom—those were the significant moments that got counted down and circled on the Ziggy calendar hanging inside our closet doors.

But I remember one party better than I remember my own. It wasn't just any ordinary seventh-grade birthday. It was Christine McCall's, and Christine was going out with Robbie—an eighth grader. Christine's wasn't any ordinary birthday party. It was a boy-girl party complete with AC/DC's “Back in Black” on the boom box and contraband Jack Daniels snuck inside the jean jackets worn by Robbie and his eighth-grade friends.

I can still describe in detail how Robbie's friend Doug Keener nonchalantly asked me if I wanted to go out to the garage with Robbie and the birthday girl. I can tell you how I followed him out the family room door into the dark two-car garage and how we climbed into the backseat of Mr. McCall's Buick sedan (Christine and Robbie got the front seat, although in hindsight it does seem like a less desirable choice). And I can, though I won't, explain exactly what I was thinking when I let Doug Keener, a boy who hadn't said two words to me up until that invitation to join him in the Buick, slip his hand up my sweater and get to second base.

No, it wasn't my birthday. It wasn't my first kiss. It wasn't even that I'd finally gotten the attention of a popular guy who I'd had a crush on (while Doug was indeed one of the more popular guys, he was way too short to be on my five-foot-six radar). So why, to this day, can I remember exactly what I was wearing (turquoise blue knit sweater constructed of synthetic material that left red scratchy imprints on my skin and made me swear off sweaters for good); how can I remember the color of the backseat's upholstery (navy blue velour with light blue pinpoint design on the cushions); and why haven't I forgotten that the following Monday, when I passed Doug in the hall, he acted like he'd never seen me before in his life?

Very simply, it was a Judy Blume moment.

Fifteen minutes after entering the garage, I walked back into Christine's family room, arranging my sweater so that nobody was the wiser, and watched Doug rejoin his friends by the table of Doritos and Sprite as if nothing had happened—as if a few misguided attempts to undo the clasp to my bra were less noteworthy than the empty basket of Pringles he seemed to be lamenting. And as I watched Doug lick the orange Dorito dust from his fingers—the very fingers that had been groping my white cotton bra not ten minutes ago—it hit me. The friend's birthday party; the cute guy's invitation to make out in a dark place; the knowledge that said cute guy would try get to second base; and the fear of what would happen if I said no. There was another girl I knew of who'd gone through the exact same thing, and her name was Deenie.

I thought about how Deenie had debated whether to wear her back brace to her friend's party, how she was sure the cute guy was going to want to feel her up and she didn't want to disappoint him. Only Deenie had her brace to protect her, and I just had an irritating sweater that, quite frankly, made the idea of a soft hand against my skin seem way more enjoyable than poorly knit nylon. Even though Deenie and I made different choices when faced with a five-fingered assault on our training bras, we both had something very much in common. And that something is what I've come to call a
Judy Blume moment.

My parents went out on Saturday nights. I know now that they couldn't possibly have gone out every single Saturday night, every single week of the year, but that's the way I remember it. And I didn't mind. We had nice babysitters who let us stay up past our bedtime, watch the
Love Boat,
and build forts with the sofa cushions. Besides, my parents would let us get whatever we wanted for dinner (McDonald's for my brother, Hardy's for me), so their Saturday night plans were hardly something to complain about.

I couldn't tell you where they went on those nights—out to dinner or over to a friend's house or just to catch a movie. But I can recall with total clarity how my mother stood in front of her bathroom mirror while I sat on the edge of the toilet lid (complete with shaggy rug cover) and watched her get ready for a night on the town. I scrutinized her selection of eye shadow, dipped my fingers in pots of brilliant pink blush, and sat mesmerized by the wondrous transformation taking place before me—a person turning from my mom into a woman who seemed beautiful and sophisticated and so, well,
unmotherly.

I can tell you the name of the lipstick my mother wore and describe the slim gold fluted tube that I loved so much I carry my own in my purse today (Estee Lauder Starlit Pink). I can't walk by a bottle of Charlie at my local drugstore and resist the temptation to take one short sniff of the glass bottle with the familiar man's name etched in script across the front. And when I inhale, it's not the old perfume commercials I see, with the sassy models flipping their blonde Farrah hair as they cross the street and a man sings about how
they call her Charlie.
No, I see my mom staring into the mirror, her image illuminated by the brilliant lightbulbs dotting her reflection, like a movie star preparing to walk on stage.

Judy Blume moments are the ones that keep you going to the Estee Lauder counter long after you're sure no one else is wearing Starlit Pink, simply because it reminds you of your mom and the possibility of a Saturday night.

My nightgown was blue. Baby blue, to be exact. Paler than a robin's egg but darker than the light blue eye shadow I hoped to some day wear on my lids like Olivia Newton-John in
Grease.
And, like Deenie, my nightgown was purchased for a special event. My first slumber party.

I couldn't tell you what it felt like to wear the yellow tea-length dress I selected for my junior prom; nor could I tell you that I felt anything special when donning a white cap and gown for my high school graduation. But I can instantly describe how I felt dressed in that cotton floor-length nightgown with matching robe, can recall every detail. The small embroidered roses around the neckline, the kind that curl around the edges when they come out of the wash and never seem to flatten out again. My nightie was sleeveless, and the robe had loose ruffles that skimmed my shoulders, like pale blue fairy wings. It buttoned up the back, small white spheres like pearls.

A nightgown. Not my first slumber party or who attended or the games we played. (I'm sure
light as a feather, stiff as a board
must have been attempted at least once that night.) What stays with me is a pale blue cotton nightgown with matching robe that probably ended up in a Hefty bag headed for Goodwill when it no longer fit me.

A Judy Blume moment makes a girl feel like a princess in a blue cotton nightgown long after the slumber party ends and the Ouija board is put away.

I can't sleep. And when I can't sleep, I lie awake in the darkness and listen to sounds (which certainly doesn't help my efforts to fall asleep). In my mind, the creaks and rappings and rattlings begin to sound like doors opening, the wires of our alarm system being snipped with scissors, and windows sliding up their tracks until the opening is just wide enough for a body to slip through. The body is always clad in black. And it's big.

Do I get out of bed and investigate? No way. Instead, I construct my own elaborate story—the one in which I save my husband and two children from the perilous hands of that large stranger hiding in the bushes outside our family room. Much like Sally J. Freedman envisioned herself standing up to Adolph Hitler and, as a ten-year-old girl, single-
handedly ending World War II, I will rescue my family from danger. And knowing that I have a story, that I've already worked out all the details to the plan in my head, helps me feel a little better as I close my eyes and fall asleep listening for footsteps.

Apparently a Judy Blume moment can occur at 3 A.M. and involves the use a retractable fire escape ladder as pictured on page 87 of
SkyMall.

We rented a house on Martha's Vineyard for a week in August. Vicki and Vangie, my two best friends from college, and our families. Our families! We had husbands! And children! Somebody was entrusting their home to us for seven days (although their trust was backed up by a healthy $1,000 security deposit). The fact that we were staying in a four-bedroom house instead of the nylon Target-purchased tent Vicki and I shacked up in during a postcollege cross-country trip made it very clear: we were grown-ups.

We lit the barbecue at night, drank beers, and laughed. During the day, we hit the sand and surf. And when I ran out of magazines, I explored the bookshelf in the living room, desperate for some beach reading.

The first book I picked out had a familiar name on the cover and a photo of an Adirondack chair. It was a story about childhood friends who reunite every summer on Martha's Vineyard. (I was on Martha's Vineyard!) The novel followed the girls through high school, college, and adulthood. (I was with my best girlfriends from college and now we were adults!) It chronicled their changing lives, and more importantly, their changing friendship as they grew up and grew apart.

I remember reading that book surrounded by two friends who'd known me since I was an eighteen-year-old girl, a college freshman for all of four hours. And I remember looking around me, watching our young children and husbands, and wondering if our friendship would change as our lives continued to be separated by miles and marriage and careers and the noise of everyday life. And I remember being wistful and sad and nostalgic, but most of all I remember being hopeful. And now, so many years later, our children have grown, our marriages have changed and in some cases dissolved, but we're still hopeful. And this year we'll be on Martha's Vineyard in August, and we'll light the barbecue, drink some beers, and laugh.

A Judy Blume moment is realizing that even as we get older, even as our lives and the people around us are changing—even as
we're
changing—we'll always be the girls who play in the waves and giggle with our friends.

 

There are the experiences we know we're supposed to commit to memory, the days we're taught to believe are pivotal—our first kiss, our sweet sixteen, the first time we thought we were in love, and the inevitable first time our heart breaks in two. So why is it that the seemingly mundane experiences are the ones we can recall with such vividness that they seem to have happened only yesterday? A baby blue nightgown. The smell of Charlie. An eighth grader copping a feel under a natty turquoise blue sweater.

Most experiences don't earn the recognition of a Hallmark card or an announcement in the newspaper or a notation on a calendar. They're moments that last maybe minutes and yet remain for a lifetime in our memories, turning an experience that could be summed up in a footnote and stretching it to mythical proportions (much like I remembered the party scene from
Deenie
as taking up the majority of the book, only to discover recently that it was less than a single page at the end of the story).

So why do these seemingly insignificant experiences take on such significance? Judy Blume knew the answer. They're significant because we're significant. They help define who we are and contribute to who we will become. They're moments that matter because they matter to us.