I’m sitting in the bathtub armed with a newly purchased pink women’s razor. The blades are covered in safety wire. The skylight flickers with the passing out late afternoon clouds. My mother leans over the edge of the bathtub to explain the ritual – the water, the soap, the grain of leg hair stubble. She leaves me. The bubbled bathwater steams up the watchful mirrors circling the room. I am only 11, but already I know that women are magic – that they can transform themselves, cutting off pieces that don’t please them. I know women keep secrets – bloody underwear and tampons tucked up sleeves on the way to the bathroom. I eagerly begin running the blade over my legs – the hairs sparkling blond and short as they are shorn. In the living room outside the door, a sitcom laughs track loops over and over. The hollow echoey laughter floating in through the door. The water turns lukewarm.

I think of the 7th-grade girls at school- smooth legged in their hiked-up skirts. I am eager to be them. The 7th grade seems very far away. I sit in the bathtub, hunched over my work – my fingers prune, the water becomes scummy with stubble. I drag the razor over every inch of my leg, going over every muscle twice. Determined to rid my legs of any tinge of invisible hair. Everything is slippery with the scent of soap.

I do not know this then, but this ritual will lose all its magic. It will become a chore instead of an incantation for rushing in whatever womanhood means to an 11-year-old. It will be rushed over and postponed. I do not know this then, but I will not fall in love till I am 22. I will not scar myself falling off a bike till I’m 23. I will not learn to climb a tree till I am 14. Here I am with the sting of soap singeing in my calf, washing the trickle of blood away, watching the crimson disappear into the suds. Here I am rushing forward- eagerly, blindly. Stupidly?

My mother peeks in through the door. I chase her away. I run the razorblade over my knee, but I catch a piece of skin. Blood gushes out. I panic and rub water into the cuts. The piercing sting brings tears to my eyes. The blood fills up the pores in my skin. I go to bed in a matching pyjama set, with mismatched bandaids. The bleeding doesn’t stop for a long time.

I do not know this then, but I walk around with this scar for the rest of my life. Bones mend. Bruises fade. My skin clumps and scabs over. This scar remains- a rite of passage. A testament to what rushing gets you. It says: the rites of passage do not expire. You cannot rush. You cannot wait. The rites of passage are coming for you, and you will not be ready.