Deserving

If nothing else, let us be honest about one thing: When a girl smells security she latches on quick--and tight. She's in it for the long haul.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not think women are fragile little things who must be sheltered from the world and take cover at first opportunity. Far from it, women are strong and independent creatures. But sometimes I think this independence is rooted in fear that there is no one to depend on. If we are able to sunder the concept of security from our stereotypical images of barefoot, kitchen dwelling 1940s femmes, we'll admit that we do want it, though it comes in many different forms depending on the girl. The most universal interpretation of the word would be understanding and acceptance. Complete the picture with wealth if you must, but this is the basis of security; freedom--not from poverty or wanting, but from judgment and misunderstanding.

When we think we've found that, whether it be in the form of a leather clad bad-boy, a vest wearing trust-fund prep, a be-grunged musician with a collection of beat up guitars, or anything inbetween, we hold on. Tight. We think, "I'll never find another guy like this. Sure he's got flaws but he loves me so well...I can't afford to let him go." It's at this point that I think a piece of us stops growing. We stop developing our confidence and individuality as we focus more and more on the "us" and less and less on the "me." We bite and claw to keep things together (because let's admit it, at some point, it's no longer effortless--and it shouldn't be). We treat it like a marriage in that we'll do almost anything, and put up with any number of mistreatments because "I'll never find another one who loves me like he does."

Again, don't misunderstand me. People are flawed. There is a level of sacrifice and forgiveness that is necessary in a relationship. But there is a desperation in the degree to which we of the female race turn a blind eye, not only to our partner's flaws, but to ourselves. To our changes. To our growth. To our failures. To our needs. To the selves we are becoming.

Our blindness is often based not on a fear of being alone. I reject that old cliche. While being alone can be very lonely, it can also be extremely liberating. I think that the real fear is that no one else will accept us. That we will never be fully understood. That we are not truly deserving of the kind of love we all dream of.

"But Jaclyn," I can hear you objecting, "It's not that I don't think I deserve love, I'm just realistic. There are fairy-tales, and then there is reality. That kind of love does not exist in reality." To this I say, Poppycock! If you really believed you deserved the love of fantasies you would fight tooth and nail to get it. (Note that when I say love I mean love--not passion, indulgence, or the quasi-subservience of a spoiling butler-with-benefits--which some deranged girls expect their boyfriends to emulate.) Ever hear someone talking about their rights? They rail on and on about how the Constitution says this or that, and how they refuse to stand for the injustice dealt them. Or what about when you receive bad costumer service at a store? Do you just go along with it? Accepting the treatment with bow-necked docility? After all there are only so many stores in this town, and they each only have so many assistants. So what if Ms. Hi-my-name-is-Penny talks on the phone with menswear while I'm waiting at the counter to be rung up? Or snaps at me rudely when I ask for a my receipt?

No one with self respect stands for this! Why? Because we deserve to be treated well when we patronize a store. And guess what? We deserve to be loved as well. It may not be any one person's obligation to love us as we need, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't get that love somewhere. It's a lovely little paradox. It's no one's job to do it, but someone should. So when someone does, when someone loves us the way we need to be loved, it's a gift. A gift we have to search for, but that's totally worth finding. We can't find it if we don't look, and that might mean giving up current security. We have to trust our gut; let ourselves grow. We may not end up with Prince Charming, but we don't necessarily have to. As much as we all deserve love, we also deserve to become the best individuals we know how to be; that is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves.

Forgiveness

There's a TV show I've fallen in love with called Make it or Break it. It chronicles the careers of four elite gymnasts who also happen to be teenage girls. See a drama coming? There's one particular story arc that intrigues me, which I'm going to try and explain to you:

Kaylie and Carter are dating, and have been for a year. Out of necessity the relationship has remained underground. Lauren is Kaylie's best friend who has had a crush on Carter since grade school. When Lauren finds out about the relationship she works to subversively sabotage it. Meanwhile, Carter feels like he's taking second place to Kaylie's other legitimate priorities. The combination of Lauren's jealousy and Carter's discontent lead to a drunken hook-up at a party. When Kaylie finds out she dumps Carter and swears she will never again befriend Lauren.

Carter, who loves Kaylie desperately, resolves to wait. Lauren gives up her sneakiness when she realizes Carter won't change his mind. Kaylie keeps Carter on a string for months--alternately needing him and pushing him away until she resolves to forgive him. Things seem fine for a couple days, until another situation (this time innocent), leads Kaylie to shut Carter and Lauren from her life again, despite their reasonable and truthful explanation.

The next day Kaylie sees the light and calls Carter to get him back. But it's too late. During Carter and Kaylie's months-long yo-yo separation Carter and Lauren became friends. Lauren showed compassion on Carter when he was kicked out of his house, and listened to him when he had no one else to talk to. Lauren hadn't made any advances on Carter for a while, but after the second rejection Carter decides to leave Kaylie and turn his romantic sights on Lauren.

------

It seemed so wrong. Lauren was the one who slept with her best friend's boyfriend. She was a bad friend and a saboteur. She manipulated both Kaylie and Carter to advance her agenda. So why does she end up with the guy? Carter and Kaylie are supposed to be soul mates. They maintained a loving relationship for over a year. Of course Kaylie is jumpy about anything involving him and Lauren, so how can he leave her now, just when things are starting to work themselves out? Carter has completely turned the tables.

It seems so right. Despite the unscrupulous hook-up, what Carter and Lauren have forged is a real friendship. She has been there for Carter while his world was crumbling and his ex-girlfriend was busy asserting her righteousness. After a while Lauren became a real girl, someone with the capacity to love and deserving of love. And that's what Carter appears to be ready to give her.

Watching this saga unfold caused me rethink forgiveness. It's tempting to hold offense over the heads of the offenders, to make them crawl up the steps of our approval on their hands and knees. But no matter how severe the offense, the statue of limitations will eventually run out. The other person will forgive themselves and move on. We will lose the presence of the offender in our lives for good if we do not decide how much we really need them.

Maybe we don't need them at all. Then forgiveness can come slow. It can rise in our hearts at its own pace as we adjust to a life without them. Then the process is less about the person who wronged us, and more about healing the abscesses left behind. But maybe we do need them. Righteous indignation is justified only as long as the indignation is righteous. Eventually the saint's shine will wear away, and we will be left with a decision. Our relationship just might be something we wouldn't choose to live without. If so, we need to make up our minds to begin the process of forgiveness.

If we want their friendship, we have to be a friend. Friendship is based on trust, or at least honesty about how much trust you have. Friendship can't bear constant suspicion; it can't or be held on a string, or operate under the sustained leverage of a past situation. At one point or another we are all victims, and we have to learn to let those around us improve, or let them go.

What a Girl Wants

I'm going to ascend the soap box yet again and rant about a topic that may be uncomfortable for some: Female sexuality. Girls within the conservative Christian community are not educated about their own sexuality nearly as much as they are educated about men.

Note that I said sexuality. If we are blessed with a painfully explicit sex-ed class in middle school we are perfectly aware of how our own plumbing works (though this does not prevent some of the ridiculous notions about tampons and virginity that crop up in seventh grade). But our sexuality is left shrouded in mystery. I wonder if I'm giving my teachers too much credit? After all, we learned all about the physical changes a guy's body goes through when he's turned on, but to my knowledge, didn't address how women react to arousal at all.

This omission seems to point back to some archaic, dark-age mentality that holds women as somehow less sexual than men, a myth that is as destructive to women as individuals as it is harmful to society. How? When girls do not taught to understand their own sexuality in healthy ways, they are forced to find out experimentally. Let's be honest, even where there are good role models, teenagers can be quite deficient at gleaning useful knowledge from other people's mistakes. Add raging hormones to the mix and a pop-culture that practically condones making sexual blunders ("Let's experiment, it's human nature!"), and you have a lethal situation.

It starts around age eight. This is around the time that parents start teaching their kids the nuts and bolts about "where babies come from." Somewhere along the line the school (in my case, a private school) picks up the ball and carries it for a few grades, assailing poor, confused pre-teens with horrific pictures, lists of STDs, downhill charts of how interdigitation leads to intercourse, and ominous cassette tape testimonies from teenage girls about the horrible sex they had at thirteen and how it ruined their reputation/life.

As a teenage girl I remember the most prominent messages about sex revolved around the following three ideas:

1. Sex belongs in a marriage--An idea I still hold dear.
2. Men are highly sexual creatures who will loose it if you wear a crop top, falling on the ground in sexual frenzy and foaming at the mouth--slight exaggeration, but that's what if felt like they were telling us.
3. Good Christian girls set intricate boundaries to make sure they aren't sexually overrun by the men in their lives--again--a slight exaggeration--probably accentuated by the sourceless "girl doctrine" that sexual experiences (be they innocent or sordid) are doled out in ascending order, slowly over the course of a dating relationship until unnamed boy can be suckered into marriage. Budget well and you'll land yourself a husband!--I've had quite the trial weeding this surprisingly en-grained idea from my relational theory.

Not nearly enough time either at school or at home (sorry Mommy and Daddy) was spent talking about my own sexuality. What does it mean to be sexy? What does it mean to be a woman? What do sexual encounters mean to a girl? In what ways is she potentially stronger or more vulnerable than a guy (beyond physical strength, and depending on your source, general self-control)? What drives a girl sexually? Physical desire? Emotional desire? A combination of the two? How can she best take the reigns of her own sexuality so that her relationships are responsible and healthy?

Until recently (historically speaking), there was a cultural assumption that women were somehow less sexual than men. While our desires and motives may differ, one can be sure that our drive is very real, as are our weaknesses. It is in our weakness and misunderstanding of ourselves that we tend to make mistakes and either become doormats or stumbling blocks to male society, so that relationships in our community become even more convoluted and depraved than before (if you get the sense I don't have much respect for most teen relationships, you'd be right. I'm not a hypocrite, I'm a realist.).

And while Sex in the City has done its part to blow the chaste, asexual model to pieces, the teaching generation has yet to catch up with the emerging truths. Hopefully those of us dating now can vow to do better with our own kids.

Investments

I know for a fact my parents never counted on me dating before I graduated from high school. Nevertheless, as my sophomore year closed and my junior year began, along came a cool cat (i.j.) who knew how to make great conversation and had a charming personality. I've been dating that same boy for the last year and a half (in January=]).

I was reflecting over this fact with one of my good friends--a woman who had been my school secretary as a child--and explained to her that things between me and my boyfriend were going quite well, and for this reason, I would not be attending a speed-dating event that was taking place on my college campus. I suppose there was an air of finality to my words. When I was younger, there were few mixer opportunities available to me beyond the stereotypical high school fare. By the time I entered college I'd been dating the same guy for over a year. So why would I want to speed date?

*****

Relationships build upon themselves. Investment begins the minute you expose yourself to possible rejection--whether it by asking someone to coffee, or simply saying hi. It's relatively easy to stop seeing someone you've been going out with for a few weekends, but it's slightly more awkward once you're already started dating. A relationship of a few weeks will leave a few emotional scars once ended, but the investment becomes exponentially greater as a month, two months, six months, and then years start to role by.

It's like sinking money into stocks. As you take time and energy to get to know the other person, you become more and more vulnerable. You trust. And as you understand the other person, you allow them more grace for misbehavior. He starts to excuse your PMS. In turn, you find yourself ignoring his Monday night game obsession.

Relationships=Investment (risk)--->Returns---> Withdrawal or Deeper Investment

The quality of the returns received (love, abuse, understanding, grief, fun, etc.) are what ultimately determine the course of most relationships. Investments may start at an introduction, and continually get larger until the 'ultimate' investment is proposed by the guy with four little words on bended knee. When this happens is simply a matter of how long a relationship has been developing, which is why some girls hear these words at 18, and others at 38. However, in some communities (namely mine) many adults are discouraging modern teens from "settling" or "getting tied down" too quickly regardless of the stage they're in.

When I told my friend why I was forgoing speed dating she adamantly responded with, "Well hon, you don't have to hang up your hat just yet! You're still young. Have fun!" Within the community of the college educated, the days of fashionable early marriage are gone. Instead, promising young people are encouraged to put off marriage and children, to date around, to make decisions later and later when they will be more experienced, mature, wise, and understanding of themselves. The problem? Within the Christian college educated community abstinence is also highly encouraged--something that's exceedingly difficult when you're young, and in a long term, or serious relationship. Furthermore, it leaves certain couples in an awkward quandary.

For a young couple in their late teens or early twenties, dating can feel like a trap. They may be completely certain that the person they are with is "the one." But the old folks say "Wait! You don't know yourself yet," which may very well be true. But it's important to understand the underlying belief supporting such admonitions. It is a belief that has been pushed upon the emerging generation with great fervency, despite it's great fallacy. The belief is that Marriage=Commitment.

Don't gasp. I believe that Marriage signifies Commitment, but to say that marriage is the commitment is like saying a diploma is an education, or that a license is the same as being able to properly operate a motor vehicle. In truth, these are only the symbols of accomplishment. You get the diploma because you completed your college degree, you receive the license after demonstrating that you already know how to drive. The same is ideally true of marriage. Two adults do not gather in the sight of witnesses and pledge "till death do us part" because they are getting married, people get married because their relationship has already reached a point where they are committed "till death." The license and vows simply signify a willingness to make the relational status public. It's a matter of taking on the public social responsibility (i.e. joint taxes, etc.) of a commitment already made. The investment is already that deep.

Older adults who encourage dating teens and college students not to take their relationships "too seriously" aren't taking into account the depth of the investment already made. Where is the practicality in that advice if the relationship has already progressed to a serious level? Engagement and marriage aren't things that can simply be put off for later convenience, or at least not so blithely as some would suggest. There comes a point when you've invested so much, that it's time to make it public and permanent. Fish or cut bait. Sign on the dotted line--whatever line that may be. Sure, wisdom and experience are great, but merely waiting for time to pass doesn't foster either, and isn't particularly proactive. The stages of relationships aren't determined by age or maturity, and perhaps that is what young people should be reminded of from the very beginning.

Transition

Today I am NOT going to write about boys. I know, the sudden variety represented by this decision is refreshing even to me. I blame it on college. Yep, that's exactly where I am right now. And removed from what three months ago felt pedantic and mundane (and three months later feels almost like a different world), I suddenly feel as though I have something to say. So in case you were wondering why I haven't written in the last three months, it was to spare you my pedantic life.

In a strange way nothing has changed. I still attend class everyday, the classes are just farther apart now. I go back to a room that is slightly bigger, but that I now share with a girl I'd never previously met. My clothes are in my closet, my books are on the shelf. I have drawers now, which, for someone who prefers to fold, is an improvement.

But things have changed. I was in the Shell fast station a few minutes ago, a small place that serves food and overpriced necessities like soap and Tylenol. Everyone refers to it as the DX, which is short for Dairy Express. It used to be an ice cream place long ago. But the number of people living here who actually remember it as such is so small I don't know if I could find one under age forty.

I grab a Vitamin water from one of the fridges, my mainstay when I want to take liquid and am growing ill of the drinking fountains. Hm...which one should I pick? Focus. That's what I need right now. Because I'm coming off a four hour study binge and still feel as though I've only accomplished two hours worth of work. Because I think my mind is going to melt if it has to keep producing sentences of it's own power. And because while I know it's all placebo, the neon pink drink in this plastic bottle is going to spell the difference between hope and despair as I trudge back to the library and into a computer lab to give my midterm paper another go.

It's midterms. This concept meant only a slight increase of homework in high school. It was a due date, a reminder to be halfway done with some obscure project that no one had honestly started on. Suddenly it has significance. I need to show that I've learned something in the last five weeks. There's no more coasting. No more nodding and placating and dreaming of the party I'll go to later. Not that I was ever much of a partier. But I was a go-to-Paddy's-house-and-watch-a-dumb-movie-on-Tuesday-nighter. That's gone.

I'm an honor student now. A big, bad, college smarty-pants who has to spend hours pouring over books and digesting material. I will look down on her fellow freshman with a slightly condescending smile as I attempt, however weakly, to explain the writings of Sophocles we're discussing in my History class today. I feel like a child.

An older student, a friend and fellow reader from the English Department sits next to me. I try not to make it too obvious that I feel honored he's even bothering to associate with me outside of the office. He's a senior, and I'm a kid. A little girl in the big Emerald City. But he's there. And we're talking, and actually enjoying the conversation. At least, he seems to enjoy it. When three of my friends from my high school approach me, all seniors and graduating this year, I'm torn between embarrassment over the silly jokes we exchange, and relief over the familiar. I look back into the eyes of my college friend and I see only openness. Understanding. This is the way I'm supposed to behave. I do not need to check my high school identity at the door. I'm glad, though in some ways I want to.

I like being older, more mature, forced to think rationally and take responsibility for the minutia in my life. I like creating a new image. Something sleeker, and cooler, and perhaps more understood than the brainy, inaccessible, anomaly I was in high school. I like choosing friends, and realizing they chose me too. I like college.

A few minutes after my co-worker left me I made the unwise and completely unpremeditated decision to shake my open bottle of vitamin water. "Dang it!" I burst out (or some variation thereof), and immediately reach for the thin brown napkins in the metal holder to wipe the table, the magazine I was reading, and myself with. My black sweater-dress is covered in light brown lint. Child again. But it's okay. I may not always be all that sophisticated, and while I don't think I'll ever have a taste for four hour study binges, I know not-so-deep down that this is definitely the right place for me to be. Here. Now.

I clean up, pack up, and head back to the library. Then I get on the computer to blog about the new world I'm experiencing now. Maybe someone somewhere feels the same way...

Letting Go...

One of the most painful things in the world, is seeing someone you care about slowly slip away. It could be because they've found new friends, or a new lifestyle or traumatic event. Or maybe an addiction or illness is slowly ripping them away from the person they once were and could be. Or maybe it's just a dormant problem in their life, coming to light and rising in all its ugliness to the surface. The particulars don't matter. The fact is, you had them once, but now they're leaving--if not physically, at least emotionally. They're not the same.

I've had this happen a few times. Once with a best friend I had in fourth grade. Twice in high school. It never gets any easier. But I suppose I've slowly started learning from the experiences, harsh lessons as they are. See, I suppose you could say I have something of a savior complex. I want to save people from anything and everything that's keeping them from their ideal. The problem is that the things that keep people from their ideal are bigger than a new crowd of friends or a bad attitude. Death, divorce, Depression, drugs...all these things are bigger than a person, bigger than me. In the end I find myself trying to turn the person away from their negative choices and responses. In the end I find myself trying to save people from themselves. And that's something only God can do.

Sometimes as a friend you have to learn when it's time to let go. Sometimes all you can do is love and pray for a person. Sometimes you have to admit that you can't pull them from the abyss, especially if they're kicking and screaming.

I'm always fascinated by shows like The Cleaner, Mental, and Smallville (in the early seasons). It's not because all the leads in these shows are particularly attractive, or because I'm just a prime time drama junkie (which they are, and I am). It's because of what all these shows have in common: common people saving lives. Even pre-'tights-and-flights' Clark Kent doesn't settle for simply saving lives, he appeals to the emotions of the villains as well as the victims. In fact, his real fight is the ongoing struggle for his sort-of-friend Lex Luther: the one person he couldn't save from himself. But for a while he does his best to rescue Lex from the darkness that consumes him. For a while it seems like there might be hope.

I suppose in a way these people are my heroes. William Banks drags people from their life of drugs and alcohol, cleaning them up so that they can return to the life they left behind. Dr. Jack Gallagher jumps into the frey with dangerous nutcases--the dangerous schizophrenic who's actually an inspired artist, the debilitated mother of four. He takes risks, being both firm and kind, and sometimes crazy. And through him these people find healing. I've always wanted to do that. But for some reason this doesn't seem to be my role to play. At least, I can't see any "mission accomplished" the way Clark, Banks, and Gallagher always seem to.

I guess that's because real life is a lot more difficult. Real life doesn't have writers, directors, or even documentarians who can follow people around to see if they ever did get healed, happier, better. Real life isn't a TV show. So you can't always save people. Sometimes you just have to let go.

Big Anniversaries!

Big Anniversaries! They're so much fun. It's great to celebrate how far you've made it as a couple, especially when things are going well. For me and my beau it's been exactly 364 days :). It'll be our one year anniversary tomorrow. There are no instruction manuals about how to get here, but nonetheless I know how we did: We did tons and tons of talking.

Beyond that we put the good of the other person above what their immediate reaction might be. I know there were several times when my boyfriend put the good of our relationship (e.g. rationally talking out a conflict) over my anger at him. He wasn't afraid of being out of my good graces. And I've returned that favor several times myself. Of course, there is a time to let tings go--to back up and let the other person be. But too often I think people in relationships try to placate each other for the sake of "getting along." Meanwhile those problems grow and fester until the relationship itself is in peril. If you never get to the bottom of a pile of junk, it grows...

That said, there are some types of struggles that only gt more difficult the longer you're together, especially when things are going well. Can you guess what I'm talking about? It's the physical. See, when things are good it's really hard to maintain the same conservative level of self control that's easy to keep up when things are going badly, or, even just normally. When you're swept up in the joy of being with this one wonderful personal for a significant amount of time, it's easy to get carried away in the level to which you express you joy.

That said, absolutely nothing could dampen my excitement about tomorrow. Whatever shortcomings we have as a couple have been thus far overcome. Our families are going out to lunch tomorrow. And I think the words of both my mom, his mom, and my sister kind of say it all, "A year already? Time flies." It sure does.