Throughout my adolescence, and into young adulthood, my mother has always used the verse Matthew 5:5,
Blessed are the meek,for they will inherit the earth. as a way of saying, "Can-it April, you're being too loud!" Well, maybe not in those exact words. But it was her verse to hinder me from getting too loud, or getting too sassy, or being too funny. In her eyes, these things are not what a girl should be. Because of this, for my entire life I have felt that God didn't want me to be too smart,too funny or too voicetress.
In my mom's eyes, God and man are in agreement.
Men don't want these things in a woman. A woman is supposed to be quiet, and dainty, and pretty, and smell nice. I know now that she misinterpreted the verse. God wasn't saying that he wanted a bunch of quiet Christians. And it does not say, "
WOMEN! Blessed are the meek!
SILENCE!" Humble Christians... maybe that is more of what God had in mind?
I don't blame her, it was her own mother who had said the same things to her, and probably my great-grandmother who started it (Great Grandma Tillman...I hope you and God had a chat about many things, upon your arrival).
I laugh all of the time. I can't help it. I laugh when I shouldn't, when things aren't supposed to be funny. Inappropriate things (ie. when I hear the word boner, etc.) I laugh every time my ethics professor curses. I'm like a 9 year old, cursing is funny to me.
For my whole life, I feel like I have struggled with my mother and grandmother's ideas of who I am supposed to be as a woman. When I got into the 6th grade, my mom informed me that I could start wearing make-up. I never asked. When I didn't express the desire to wear it, she kept urging. This battle went on into high school and even college. always argued. My argument was that if a man really loved me, he wouldn't care if I was wearing make-up or not. Her response was that this may be true, but that he may never get that far, if I didn't make myself look desirable. Again, not in her exact words, but along those lines.
I won't go into the arguments about the two perms I have had in my life, and the countless outfits that my mother has bought for me, that I have resented her for making me wear. Okay, I went into it a little bit. My mother is one of my best friends, and not a mean woman at all. She never meant me any harm. Like most mothers, she just felt that she knew the best (and still does). She only learned from what she encountered in her life, and the advice passed on from her mother.
I would say that I have learned to stand my ground with her. She no longer gets to buy clothes for me out of the her "old lady" catalogs (though she tries desparately), and there will never be another perm on my head. I wear make-up when I know that there will be someone who SHE wants me to impress. I wear make-up to church and other places where there are men who I would actually consider dating.
Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't have turned out more girlie, if she hadn't been so persistant. Still, to this day if she knows I will see a guy I could potentially be interested in, I will hear, "Where's your lipstick?"
In the end, I still struggle with the imposed desire to feel girlie. To feel beautiful, to feel seductive. When I was fatter, I grew the attitude, "Why the heck would I bother?" Men look right through you when you are fat. Now that I have lost quite a bit of weight, I struggle with the desire to feel feminine. For someone who has some creative genes, I have no idea about the other kind of jeans. As a fat girl you just get used to buying clothes that don't make you look completely awful.
I don't know how to be soft spoken. I get quiet when I am shy, uncertain, uncomfortable, when I have a secret, when I am tired and when I am sad. But if it isn't one of those times, I am busy laughing, yelling, and talking loudly. For most of my life I have felt self-conscious about if I get too happy, or too excited...guys won't want to date me. If a girl seems too self-confident, guys won't like her. My friend Joe once told me, that when a guy meets me, he knows that he can't tell me something that isn't 100% true. Because I will call him out on his crap. Apparently this is intimidating for some men.
Deep down, I am a complete girl. By this, I mean that I am completely too sensitive. My guy friends have found this out the hard way. One minute she is playing bloody video games, or is in a round of darts and the next minute, she is pouting because you've hurt her feelings...and you're not even sure why.
What do you do with a girl who is incredibly excited for the Time Traveler's Wife AND Boondock Saints 2 to come out on DVD?
