So Here’s the Thing…: Notes on Growing Up, Getting Older, and Trusting Your Gut(8)

Now that I no longer work at the White House—and have, crucially, exclusively taken jobs that allow me to show up to work in pajama-esque jumpsuits—I try not to let it affect my life too much. I’ve learned to be aware of certain things other people might take for granted. Being far from a bathroom stresses me out; you know that moment when you’re about to leave a restaurant and are debating whether to use the bathroom because you don’t know when you’ll be near another one? That’s my life all the time. (I prefer taking trains to planes because there are multiple bathrooms on a train; on the Obama campaign in 2007 we started off flying on tiny planes with no bathrooms, or planes with tiny bathrooms equipped with privacy-limiting folding doors, and it made me anxious.) It took me a long time to get where I am, which is acceptance with some self-deprecating humor. Don’t be like me: Get to know your body, its strengths and weaknesses, and once you figure out your special-snowflake situation, don’t fight it. Figure out specific strategies for making it not suck, and try not to be ashamed. I’m a forty-two-year-old woman with the diet of a picky seven-year-old and the bathroom habits of a seventy-two-year-old. What can I do but talk about it?

1 Not his real name.

2 As in Dan Pfeiffer, former senior adviser to POTUS, current co-host of Pod Save America, New York Times–bestselling author of Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump, and my longtime BFF.

3 As in Jon Favreau, former speechwriter, current co-host of Pod Save America, and another essential member of the crew I (affectionately) refer to as “the bros” in the White House.

4 Valerie Jarrett, former senior adviser to POTUS.





SEVEN THINGS IN MY BAG





Chinese ginger-orange chews and Gas-X: These can calm an angry stomach. The Gas-X makes champagne, salads, and Mexican food much more enjoyable.

Dental floss: When I got my wisdom teeth removed, the rest of my teeth spaced out; I can basically get an entire roast beef sandwich stuck between my molars.

Patchouli oil: It’s all of who I am. It smells great and is soothing. I walk into the room in a cloud of patchouli and everyone suddenly feels relaxed and gives me exactly what I want.

Phone charger: My friend Cleo got me one of these weird little iPhone chargers that look like cats and can hold the charge for two phones.

Eyeglass wipes: I am a pig. My fingerprints are all over everything all the time. These work for glasses and for my iPhone.

Lip balm and Abreva: I get cold sores, which I find disgusting. I’m never going to reclaim my cold sores and become proud of them. Abreva and lip balm can shut them down quick enough that the virus doesn’t colonize my entire mouth.

Cash: I still live with the fear I experienced as a twenty-three-year-old when my credit card was once declined.





Are You There, God? It’s Me, Alyssa



I got my first period flying over the Pacific Ocean. I was in the seventh grade, and we were taking a family trip to Hawaii—very ’70s, I know. It was just like when the Brady Bunch went to Hawaii, except there were only two children and no racist cursed tiki dolls. We went to Hawaii because my dad was repelled by the cost of Disney World, and despite being halfway around the globe and home to some of the places that inspired Disney World’s Polynesian Village, Hawaii was cheaper.

There was some turbulence. This was back in the days when not every plane was overbooked, and people’s definitely-not-regulation carry-ons didn’t spring forth from the overhead compartments like Olympic sprinters any time you hit rough air, so there was an empty seat between me and my sister. I was scared during the turbulence, so I thought I wet myself. The Fasten Seat Belt signs were still on, so I had to sit (literally) with this assumption for a few minutes. Not only were we going to crash into a fiery/watery grave only to then be eaten by a shark, but my last seconds would be spent wearing urine-soaked underwear. Terrible. What if my family took a moment out of their screaming and praying to notice? When we could finally get out of our seats again, I went to the bathroom and saw the telltale splotch. A teeny bit of blood. I freaked out.

I didn’t freak out because I thought I was dying. I knew what periods were, and I knew mine was coming. I had just dreaded it, ever since, as an advanced reader in the second grade, I’d learned from an outdated edition of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret that you had to wear gigantic diaper-esque maxi pads that came with belts. Belts! There was no mention of tampons. As a curious premenarche preteen I’d taken a few moseys down the feminine hygiene aisle and felt so confused. There were no belts anywhere!

I eventually figured out that technology had advanced beyond diaper belts—my friend Kim’s older sister showed us tampons when I was eight or nine, though I still didn’t understand what they did. That didn’t stop me from crying at her demonstration—I couldn’t believe I would have to endure whatever it was they were. And beyond the practical concerns, there was the mythology. For people who get periods, telling the story of the moment you got your first is almost as much a rite of passage as actually getting it, so I’d been building it up. Would it bleed through my pants without my noticing? Would it happen at school? In bed? What would I be wearing? My sister was useless—she’s four years younger than I am! I was jealous of her because she had so much period-free time ahead of her. Someday my life as a non-period-having person would end, and I would be a period-haver! I didn't know the specifics of what having a period entailed, but I knew it was bad.