Graduation was 2 weeks ago and I have decided to write about my graduation experience. You have to understand that I’ve gone back and forth on whether I should post this because the topic can be a little less than kosher for both genders. But I made my decision because 1) it’s hilarious and 2) almost every women dreads this experience.
I hope that this story brings laughter to your life :)
On the day of graduation we had to arrive at 8:30 am at Angeles Temple. Since my family was staying in Ontario I had to leave at about 7:30 to make sure that I made it there on time. So I got up at 6:00, took a shower and got ready. I did my hair, my make up, got dressed, said bye to my family and then I was on my way to Angeles Temple. Nothing about the morning warned of an impending disaster.
On my way I got a Venti Starbucks coffee and made it to Angeles Temple right at 8:30. We got into our gowns, did the run through, and took our class photo. Then we were told to finish getting ready and take our stuff to our cars. I ran downstairs to take my stuff to my car and to go to the bathroom when I saw my mom sitting outside. I gave her everything and then ran to the bathroom…. I thought that I knew where the women’s bathroom was but as I walked quickly in I realized that I was wrong. I had walked straight into the boys bathroom and as soon as I realized the faces looking back at me had way too short of hair I twirled around and ran out and then into the girls bathroom.
When I got into the bathroom there was still nothing wrong. I went to the bathroom, touched up my face and headed back up to the grad room to wait until we lined up. Once up in the grad room we all just hung out. As time went on I began to sweat more and more under my gown but this didn’t seem strange since we were all extremely hot and ready to get the show on the road.
And then it was time to line up. We got set up by our names and waited until right before everything was about to start to move to our spots. And that is when I realized something had to be wrong. My “stomach” didn’t feel right at all and I was sweating more than usual. But I thought about the morning and realized I had drank a venti coffee without really eating anything of substance. The discomfort I was feeling I was sure was because of the coffee. I took a couple of deep breathes and focused on graduation.
And then we were moving along and before I knew it I was walking down the stairs to my seat. A few people after me and we were all in our seats as worship began to start. And that is the moment I realized that yet again I was wrong, it wasn’t the coffee making me feel wrong…
Now I have to let you in on a little secret, well a few. The first is that my time of the month is pretty irratic as is, when it does show up I don’t really know when it is going to arrive. The second is that every time my dad has come to visit me in California I’ve started. Regardless of those two peice of information there wasn’t a moment that morning until I was standing for worship that it even occured to me that I could be starting my period.
Well as I was standing there for worship I felt something drip down my leg. My first assumption was that since I had been sweating profusely all morning that it had to be sweat. The thing was it was a rather strange place to sweat and it sure was a lot of sweat. So very subtly I lifted up my gown and to my horror there was blood running down my leg.
I had started my period.
Now you can understand what I mean when I say that I had experienced every women’s nightmare at graduation. I stood there in worship racking my brain trying to figure out what to do. I couldn’t walk across stage with blood dripping down my leg because… well everyone would think I was dying! But I also knew that we were supposed to stay put once we had walked down to our seats.
For a few seconds I panicked but then I realized that I had managed to keep my cell phone on my person. I pulled it out and texted my boss (my office is in charge of graduation). But after a few moments I realized that she could have been doing a number of things and might not get my text so I quickly texted another co-worker, “I have an emergency. I have blood running down my leg.”
At this point in time they were introducing the speaker and I knew that my time to get the situation dealt with was beginning to dwindle. Thankfully I got a text back right before the speaker took the stage to quickly go up the isle and exit. As soon as I got the text I hunkered down and sprinted to the exit. I went out, requested for my purse to be gotten from my family and we managed to fix the sitution. Everything got resolved and I was back into my seat as the speaker began to wind down.
Since graduation people have asked me what I thought about the speaker and how graduation was. Well sadly I heard maybe 2 minutes of the speaker and graduation was a blur. But in all honesty I can tell you this… Although this is every women’s nightmare and can be seen as embarrassing it really wasn’t that bad. I survived. It was so ridiculous of an event to take place on such a special and momenteous occasion that I just have to shake my head and share it with the world. I’m not embarressed really by something that is an extremely natural occurance for women and which many women have rather unfortunate stories such as me. What I’ve learned is… that when life gives you weird situations, laugh and enjoy them!
normalbeautiful 