Dear Diary!
Now I really am a woman! We did it! You know the whole story – except for that, and I will tell you, but want first to recall it all from the beginning.
When Mom suggested that I keep a diary and gave me a five year diary book for my twelfth birthday, I didn't know what to write, what to tell you. But when I had my first period a few months later, she told me that I was becoming a woman. I sure didn't feel like one and sure didn't have anything to look like one, like I told my diary the first day. That's when I got my idea to make it a diary about that: "On becoming a woman."
My birthday is after Christmas, never got anything but a token birthday present after the Xmas ones. The diary was an original idea in that context, but as said, I didn't know what to do with it, until my first period. With that theme, I spent the rest of the year trying to have thoughts about the subject. What does a twelve year old think about "becoming a woman"? Nothing in that direction was happening, not like with a couple of girls, who really could wear bras.
I told my diary all about that. By the end of the year, I gave up on daily postings, having calculated that if I was going to become a woman - by then I finally had related that to have had sex with a boy - it wasn't going to happen by my seventeenth birthday, a couple of days before the diary book would be full.
Not much to tell for the rest of the first year. When Mom asked on my thirteenth birthday if I was using the diary, I blushed and admitted that her remark about my first period had given me a theme. She liked that, and I really like that she did, especially that she said that it was my private, secret diary. Did she have thoughts about how it could end: my becoming a woman?
I didn't, not at thirteen, and still not needing a bra. Did Mom suggest a learner's bra? My diary would know. If she did, I must have blushed. But Mom was real good, suggesting that I could use junior tampons and helping me.
Being thirteen wasn't much better, especially seeing classmates "blossom." And learning to play the clarinet didn't make me "one of the crowd," also not with my glasses. But, as I told my diary, I enjoyed music and playing, that I was apparently pretty good - local youth orchestra.
Local youth orchestra: a bunch of nerds like me, but then I was fifteen, and - like I told my diary - could really fill an A-cup bra. By Christmas, maybe even a B-cup? Not really, after an embarrassing experiment in a store. But a guy in the orchestra said that he thought I was better than the other clarinetist, whose breasts were definitely bigger than mine. Of course, he was talking about my playing - not about our breasts. That was good, since I had been hung up about not having a cheerleader's figure.
As I told my diary, I was hung up about a lot of other things. Girls' talk: were they just bragging, talking through the top of their hats?! It sounded like they knew a lot more about boys than I did.
And then finally, at the dance at the end of junior high, I kissed a boy, not anything like a real kiss, as I later discovered, but as I told my diary, I thought it was another step towards becoming a woman. Someone had turned out the last lights, and we could hear others kissing, so we did. I don't think he had before either, and I had my glasses on.
Then I had a scholarship to a prep school with a better music department, but a clarinet-playing girl with glasses was still a nerd on campus, like most of the other music students for the other students, and they all seemed more sophisticated, maybe stuck-up, at least towards me. First year wasn't good, except for the music. Second year was better, after I played something by Benny Goodman at a school dance. And the boys liked to dance close I even kissed a couple after the dances, like I told my diary. They wanted to kiss me! Well, by then, that they probably wanted to kiss anyone, like I did. Older girls, seniors, eighteen, were talking. Did they really go that far with their boyfriends back home? No guy had tried to hold my breast, much less, do even more, like some girls bragged.
Senior year, I became lead clarinetist, and in the other sections a senior replaced the "first chair" of the year before. Then some students didn't think I was such a nerd, but maybe others thought I was a greater one - the jocks, male and female, especially those with cheerleader figures. The gymnasts had respect for our rehearsing, knowing from their training that it was necessary to do well. But the couple of those guys were, well, it seemed not interested in girls.
On my eighteenth birthday, Dad surprised me by opening a bottle of champagne. I had been allowed to drink a glass or two of wine with festive meals for a couple of years, but this was the first time Mom and Dad were just celebrating with me. When he toasted me with nice words about becoming an adult, "now you are a young woman," I blushed, thinking about my diary, as I duly recorded that night, definitely another step to becoming a woman. I even felt a little like one, although by then I was certain that I wouldn't be one until I had lost my virginity.
After Christmas, the music director suggested that the first violinist and I play a violin clarinet sonata. We were both surprised, didn't think we were that good, and I hardly knew him, another "four-eyed" musician, a real nerd on campus; a guy who plays violin. Worse, it was - is - for the graduation concert in a couple of weeks.
At least we had a lot of time to rehearse, individually and together. The director gave us a tape recording of the piece and the music, telling us to tell him when we were familiar enough with it to let him hear us. That was sort of flattering, but left it to us to learn our parts and then rehearse together. That was a challenge, and forced us to see more of each other.
For a couple of weeks, we just learned our notes, practicing individually in the rehearsal rooms, meeting to exchange the tape, which we could play in the rooms and compare with our own efforts. After another week of solo practice, we agreed to listen to each other. I hoped he was as embarrassed as I was about playing for each other, as I probably told my diary had ever visited my room, and I certainly hadn't visited any boy's, but girls who had a boyfriend told about the frustration. The student pamphlet was specific about no sexual activity