How one period disaster led to meeting my best friend

When I was 12 years old I moved from Portland, Maine to Sacramento, California — a trip of 3,111 physical miles and lightyears away from everything I had ever known. It would be a complete understatement to say that it was a hard move for me. California life was far less sheltered than my life in Maine. In the first two years after the move, I learned more sexual slang and dirty jokes than I had EVER learned in the 12 years I lived in Maine. Boys publicly masturbated at the school I went to. When I brought this up to the teachers, all of them were all stunned. Somehow they hadn’t that half the student body always had their hands down their pants.
My parents had signed me up to go to a girls camp with the church we belonged to in California as a way to help me make friends and meet new people. I resented this — like everything else they did those first few years after the move — but I went anyway. To add to the mess, I started my period the day before the first day of camp. I hadn’t really mastered having a period at that point, and just grabbed a bunch of panty liners for the rest of the week hoping for the best.
That week was a hot mess. I was in and out of the bathroom all day constantly changing panty liners desperately trying not to bleed through my clothes. A day or two in, I ran back to the cabin where everyone kept all their stuff to grab more panty liners.

As I rummaged through my bag looking for more panty liners, I realized I only had two left, for three more days of camp. As I was about to collapse into a puddle of blood and tears, I heard a voice behind me say:
I noticed the blood on your pants and thought you might need a pad. I have a couple if you want.
I guess I hadn’t been the master of concealment that I thought I was, so, being desperate, I accepted the pads offered.
Though this menstrual savior of mine and I didn’t really hang out much at camp after that — possibly because our first meeting involved her spotting my bloody rear end — we ended up hanging out more as the summer went on. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight for us as friends, but we grew on each other. Over time, and with the help of countless sleepovers, lots of Spice Girl songs, and shared sugar-induced euphoria, we became really good friends.
Twenty years later, we’re still friends. She can spot my BS from a mile away and I can rangle her into a spontaneous dance party faster than anyone else. I love her ability to laugh at herself and the beautiful tragedy that is real life. She loves that, even if I have two oranges, I’m gonna half ‘em both with her. She saved my bee-hind 20 years ago and we continue to save each others bee-hind to this day. And, that, my friends, is pretty f-ing awesome.

