"Period Panties."

 - Something I saw on Instagram.

I pulled my surgical mask down to unmuffle my voice, "I have to do these appointments, mom. I need to make the money, and you know this."

It was merely my sixth consegutive year doing tattoos; eight years total. This was the longest I had stayed in one studio, and my health hadn't interfered with my ability to work.

More common issues, however...

Colds, flus, bugs, and germs.

These things still took me down, from time to time. Just like now. 

I wasn't being stubborn about my health because of my seizure history, though. I swear. It was because we needed the money. Kerry was constantly so stressed about money, and I was doing everything possible to make sure we were both working equally as hard towards the bigger, brighter future we wanted. If we wanted to afford our bills and a baby, we needed to make sure we had money. 

My mom was on her way to the studio, soup and medicine in hand. I couldn't explain to her that it was because we were trying for a baby, and I'm sure the reasons for that are obvious. They weren't so obvious to me at the time, though. I knew I felt scared to tell her, I just didn't understand why. I felt silly.

"You don't have to drive out of the way to do all of that," I protested, "I'm just going to do these two appointments and go home. Aiden is off work, today. He will take care of me."

My client was giggling at the sound of my mother protesting back through the speaker of the shop phone. She insisted, and she also had some vitamins and orange juice. She would be pulling in any second. 

I smiled, thanked her, let her know I loved her, and hung up the phone. Pulling my mask back up and changing gloves, once again, I thanked my client for all of this patience they had. 

This was a long-time promised appointment with a very regular client, so opening early to come in with some killer autumn alergies wasn't too out of the question. They loved my work, and they paid me well. You develop a decent number of relationships like this in the art industry, and it saved my butt in times we needed to feed ourselves.

"That's a good mama," they smiled as I positioned them for the stencil. 

"I have the best mama," I smiled back. My heart felt fuzzy, and warm. I knew there were people out there who's mother didn't give a fuck if they had hot soup or vitimins when they were sick. There were mothers out there who didn't even see their kids. 

I have a wonderful mother. I loved to acknowledge that, and brag on her. She deserved every ounce of gratitude I could muster, and more. I wished I could give her more.

I heard so many horrible stories about other mothers, and I couldn't imagine. I sympathized with my husband, so much, because he had such a hard relationship with his parents. My mom was my best friend. It definitely made me feel guilty, sometimes. 

Plus, I wanted to have a baby, so badly. I had been trying to be a mother for so long, at this point. I had been planning for a baby just like my mom planned for me, and this was something to be cherished and appreciated. My mind could not process an understanding of, say, mothers that chose drugs and alcohol over their kids; or beat their kids and abused them.

Right? There is no way I could phathom how something like that must feel.

It was a very scary and upsetting thought. 

While also taking this as a golden opportunity to let the stencil set before starting the tattoo, I ran out to the parking lot as my mom's bright red sports car came pulling in. She climbed out, lifting her big, fabulous, dark sunglasses to the top of her head and handing me a big bowl of soup. She hands me two Vitamin C tablets to take with a fancy tumbler full of orange juice.

"And here's another suprise," she smiled her pearly, white smile as she walked around to the passenger side and opened the door. She waited for my reaction excitedly as she pulled out a brand new, and very beautiful, pair of Louie Vuitton Uggs and a full bath and lotion set from Bath and Body Works.

Of course I was blown away. I didn't know how to react, but I was blown away. 

I always felt so awkward, accepting these kinds of things. I was extremely grateful, but the intensity of the gift felt so overwhelming. There is no way I could ever repay her for such greatness. 

Not at the rate I was struggling.

I always panicked about not seeming appreciative or excited enough, but I tried.

I even still have those Uggs, to this very day. Along with about two or three other pair that she gave me at some point.  

I remember hearing stories about girls who's mothers didn't even teach them basic hygiene, and here I was getting things like this left and right. 

No wonder I felt so guilty about being spoiled...

If I needed toothpaste or tampons, she bought it. If I needed bread or cat food, she spotted me a twenty. If I saw something in the store that made her think of me, she bought it. I never needed for anything, ever, and she had done this for me my entire life. 

 I remember when I told her how my therapist had explained this to me: 

"You grew up learning to never have needs", she looked at me with the most hateful expression I had ever seen. That expression she makes when she is trying to look at me like I'm stupid, and what I'm saying doesn't make sense. 

Maybe it didn't make any sense...

"What is happening to me?" I remember exclaiming to myself, as I noticed my panties were once again filled with some scary, dark liquid. 

I was so afraid to say something, because everyone had already been going through enough as it was. 

Constant court cases against Lance were deafening. I had already gotten in so much trouble for every little thing, I didn't know which way was what anymore. I couldn't trust saying anything to anyone on the phone, anymore. I didn't know if I would say or do something wrong. I didn't know who I could tell, because everyone would report back either to my mother or Lance, and they would just get angry and fight.

There were times my mom would try to remind me that it wasn't my fault, but I found it hard to believe her when everything else happening said otherwise.

My already being sick all the time had caused so much trouble, I didn't want to cause more problems with more sickness. 

I remember at one point during this time, I had just brushed it off by telling myself that I was just gross. That there was something wrong with me, and I was just "retarded" and pooping on myself. I didn't want to be in trouble for being a nine year old girl that still pooped on herself, so I started rushing to rinse my panties off in the sink as best as I could, and then hiding them in the back of the closet with small stacks of my other dirty clothes. 

Maybe no one would need to know, and I'd be able to just get it under control.

That's what I needed to do; get it under control. I continued to talk down to myself, wondering why I always had to have something wrong with me.

Those feelings of wishing I could die started flooding back in.

I remember hiding out in the top of the barn on the farm at Aunt Danny's and just sobbing uncontrollably, until I couldn't anymore. I would resort to just staring blankly at my surroundings. 

Hay, horses, chickens, dirt. Old wood, flies, insects.

I could make out what was there, but couldn't process much else.

Getting out on the four-wheeler with my cousin was my only escape. On days he didn't want to ride, I had complete melt downs. In private, of course...

I would fantasize about falling off one of the horses and breaking my neck, or taking one of my cousin's hunting rifles and dealing with it that way.

I didn't have the guts, though. I knew what something like that would do to my already stressed and hurting mom, and I couldn't handle the thought of leaving her. I would watch her while she sat on the swing of Aunt Danny's back porch and just cry to her friends, and to my Aunt Danny.

Lance would harass us, abuse us, and break us down piece by piece. He wanted to take me away, and she knew that I wouldn't be safe. We all knew that. 

But he had more money than us, for better lawyers. Fighting him like this, just to keep me safe, was killing her. 

I would cry and cry, begging not to have to see him. She would fight and fight to try and give me what I wanted. Not to mention all the trauma he was causing her, seperately from me. 

All the trauma he had already caused her. 

The fuel that was being added to the fire. 

"I went broke and slept on your Aunt Danny's porch swing, just to keep you safe!" she had reminded me of this so many times.

So, if I were to die, she wouldn't have to worry about this stuff anymore, right? Having a baby wasn't so fun, anymore. If she didn't have me tying her to Lance, like this, she wouldn't be having all these problems. She could just go, divorce Lance, and live her life.

I realized this. I began realizing it the shorter she had gotten with me, and the more she had started rolling her eyes and giving me that "are you stupid" look, almost every time I spoke. I had realized it when I started getting in trouble so much. I realized how often I caused problems and made everyone upset, every single day.

No one would have to deal with Lance, if it weren't for me.

"I tried for you on purpose," I could hear my mom's voice very slightly in the background. "I wanted you. I planned for you."

Moments like that reminded me that I didn't ask to be born. You brought this on yourself. The person you wanted to give birth to doesn't exist. How am I supposed to help with something like that?...

"Ginger Grace, get your ass in here, right the fuck now!" my mother screeched from the back bedroom of Aunt Danny's farm house. My stomach sank in to my feet, knowing I was in trouble for something else, yet again...

She didn't cuss like this, until leaving Lance. When we lived at home, with him, she was hyper-religious and I wasn't even allowed to hear the word "crap" without making her upset. Since moving in to Aunt Danny's, her vocabulary had become much more colorful. So had her anger...

Her screams were just so loud and violent... 

The bloodcurdling sounds vibrated from the back of her throat like something beyond what any horror film could ever dipict. It was enough to freeze the entire environment, and the bright flashing of "crazy" in her wide, blackened eyes complimented the terror she brought on very well.

My mind started racing at all the different possibilities of what it could be. How bad was I about to get it? What was going to happen?

I wanted to throw up.

As I stood from my seat at the kitchen table, I glanced around at the whole family staring at me. My cheeks turned bright red. Aunt Danny, Uncle Jeb, both of my cousins, and two of my uncle's friends were all present, and wide eyed.

I hung my head in shame as I nervously dragged myself to the back room. I found my mother standing there, all of my dirty clothes drug out of the closet and piled at her feet. She held two pairs of my panties in her hands, faint brown stains held visibly in my direction. Her expression was furious, and she was staring at the ground. Or better yet, through it. Her eyes were wide and insane.

My stomach dropped again.

"What in the hell have you been doing with your panties?" she was still screaming,  and I just knew the whole house could still hear her every word. I tried to hush her as nicely as I could.

"Mama, please stop screaming, everyone can hear you-..."

Before I could even finish my sentence, she spun past me to slam the thin, wooden door to my cousin's bedroom (almost) off the hinges.

This would, maybe, somewhat muffle her screams, if I was lucky. But considering that everyone was standing right at the end of the hall, I doubted it.

"Why would you not tell me you were on your period? Would I not buy you pads? Do I not bend over backwards to always make sure you have everything you could ever need?"

She was waving the dirty panties inches from my face, now, and screaming even louder. She would escelate the screaming to such violence that, while reaching even more ear-piercing height, would become an actual growl.

This "voice", and the control it granted her over a small and frightened child, convinced her that she had power. Power is what she felt she needed, at the time, after Lance had taken so much of it from her. When she looked at me, I knew she saw him. I look just like him. This was her way of getting him back for everything he had done.

I didn't understand that, then. But I do, now...

"Why would you do this to me? Now all of your nice panties are completely ruined! Do you have any idea how expensive these panties were? I bust my ass and do everything within my power to keep you safe and make sure you have nice things! So you can just shove your dirty period panties in the back of the closet, like a fuckin' retard! Retarded kids do this kind of shit, Ginger! Do you realize that? Do I not raise you and teach you to act better than this? Don't we already have enough happening to us!"

All of the wild screaming about what an ungrateful, malicious, clueless little brat I was began to fade in to white noise. Horns. Fuzz. Blurr. Vibration.

"Do I, or do I not, bend over backwards for you!?"

My sobbing was uncontrollable.

"Yes," my voice was shaking and I just wanted to sink in to the ground, and disapear forever. "I didn't know that's what that was..."

This was only the second time I had ever had a period, and I was very young. My first period had been almost an entire year prior, while we were still living in our old house with Lance. I was barely eight years old, and I imagine that my period was not something that would be very regular yet. I still didn't know much, and I didn't remember it looking the same way last time it had happened. So I didn't know what it was.

These were not things a five, six, seven, and eight year old little girl should have been worried about. At what point was I given the opportunity to be a child? I was immediately flung in to womanhood before I could even start Kindergarten. I was sexualized for the first time at four years old and, very possibly, even before then; and my memory just doesn't hold it.

I've always had trouble explaining this to my mom, though, through all the screaming...

"Fuck yes, that's what it was, Ginger, what in the hell do you think this nasty shit is in your panties? Your expensive panties that I just bought you? Instead of ruining all your brand new underwear, you should have just told me!"

 She was continuing to wave the dirty panties in my face...

I just remember crying, and focusing on my cousin's bedroom wall. Purple, with green polka dots. She and I had been sharing a room since my mom and I started staying here, and she had kept my "dirty-panties-in-the-closet" secret for me. 

She didn't understand, either. But promised me everything would be okay.

She's four years younger than me...

She was the only one with pain and sympathy in her eyes when I made my humiliated walk back in to the kitchen, after the screaming was over... 

No one else would look at me...