Dear Public Diary,

When I was eight years old, I broke my vagina. Or I thought I did.

Let me give you some background. My hockey team was playing at the TD Garden before a Bruins game. The day started off great, even scored a hat trick during the game. If you ask my dad, he probably still thinks it’s my greatest accomplishment to this day. Thanks, dad.

After the game, we’re in the locker room and in walks Milan Lucic, the Bruin’s left wing. The boys in the room adored him because he was a great hockey player, I adored him because he was cute. Apparently, I was a shallow eight year old. Sue me. I’ve grown.

So here I am meeting my first ever crush, this professional hockey player. He gives us a quick speech then decides he’s going to give one of us a signed hockey stick. We’re all sitting on folding chairs, but I’m on a mission to get his attention. I stand up on the chair and jump up and down. Terrible idea. I don’t recommend.

The chair closed. Right on my lady parts. Cue hysterical crying. In front of my 20 male team members, in front of my male coaches, and most importantly in front of Lucic.

It’s worth noting that at age eight, I didn’t know the proper terminology for the female parts. My whole family always called it ‘pixie’ and I never questioned it until that day. They say it came from their Scottish grandmother, but I don’t know who flat out lied to them because I’ve googled it since and it simply does not mean that in any language. A damn fairy is about the only search result I could find. So here I am hysterically crying about some mystical creature.

"I... I... I broke my pixie" is all I kept saying over and over again. Ensue awkward male dialogue between my coaches:

She broke her picture? Did she have a signed picture or something, and she broke it? No, no. I think she’s saying pixie – that’s a fairy right? Did she have some sort of toy fairy? I uhh think this is more of a girl issue. Someone get a girl. Someone call her mom.

Poor guys. I’ve never seen grown men so flustered.

Lucic’s long gone by this point. Can’t say I blame him.

Eventually everyone gave up on my female dramatics and decided to go get the first member of the opposite sex they could find. In walks three ice girls. Now I’m not sure if you’re gonna know who I’m talking about here so let me paint you a picture. You know the girls who sweep the ice during commercials and for some reason it must be a requirement to have giant breasts? I do think they changed this qualification though. Maybe hiring women for the NHL like it was a Hooter’s restaurant wasn’t okay. Who knows? All I know in that moment is that little ole me – a sweaty, sobbing mess was being shoved into a bathroom stall with these three strangers.

These girls were probably wondering what the hell got them in this situation; this wasn’t in their job description. They all seemed to think I was upset because I got my period. Probably had something to do with me crying and pointing to my crotch. Just a guess. But at age eight, I had no idea what a period even was. So while they tried to explain to me what becoming a woman was, I was on the brink of a meltdown.

Why do they keep talking about periods, this isn’t time for a grammar lesson. What is she looking in her purse for? What’s a tampon? She wants me to put that WHERE?

I ran.

Right into Lucic. Nah, just kidding but that would have been a great ending.

Turns out I didn’t actually break my vagina. Turns out that’s not possible. But I did get the signed hockey stick. They said it was because of the hat trick, but that’s a load of B.S. No one knew how to deal with the girl crying about her lady parts, so let’s give her a signed hockey stick to shut her up. And maybe, just maybe that was my plan all along.

It wasn’t. I wasn’t some eight year old mastermind. But that would have been cool.