I have lately been thinking of myself as two distinctive persons (or personalities). You have Cyn and Cynthia, and they have both been within me for ever, and Im suspecting it is the same case with many people wether or not they admit it.
The first, Cyn, is the person that developed after high school. This Cyn wants to make a change in the world, wants to bring about radical and positive alternatives and solutions to world hunger, prostitution, and every other unjust social cause in our community and in the world. Easily inspired, this person will do everything to have attention brought to the cause that she is supporting, and in whatever means possible. Rallies, hunger strikes, shock ads, you name it, she's done it. She's the rebel who wants to be noticed and loved or hated, as long as she is noticed. She doesn't want children, marriage, a regular job. She wants to be like the hippies and bohemians of Rent (minus the STD's) She wants to spread the word out on love and peace, and strenght as people. She wants to be an actress, not the phony Hollywood types but the ones who do live theatres and imrov. She wants dreads, and radical clothing, and pursue vegetarianism just because she feels like it. This person strives most of all to be free, of everything and everyone. Confident in herself, she loves freely and without ties to any particular person. She stands up for women's rights and supports abortion rights, and polygamy, just because she goes by the philosophy that as long as it doesnt hurt anyone, who the heck cares what it is you do? She wants to travel the world with a backpack on her back and noone really knowing where she is. This person will change the world even if it takes her death.
And then there is this Cynthia, and she is slowly developing and has been so for the past couple of years. This person is re-dedicating herself slowly to the religion of her youth and of her father, and is feeling like she is home at last. She wants children, so many of them people look at her like she's crazy. She wants to stay home and raise them herself, and greet her husband home from work with a clean house and a supper on the table. She wants to have a garden in the back of her home with vegetables and a few fruit trees. She wants to quilt and sew, and be thrifty and proud of it. She wants to work with children for the rest of her life, and is so looking forward to the day she can announce that she is expecting. She wants to cook everything, make everything by hand, and dreams of a happy home full of loud children and clean laundry. She is re-assesing herself and her beliefs and is starting to admit to herself that deep inside, she believes abortion is murder. She daydreams about her future kitchen. This person will never be happy away from home and doesnt want to make waves other than the ones in the bathtub washing a lttle one.
So how the heck can I live with these two personalities, neither giving way? Who am I, really? How can I meld the two toguether without losing myself? Who am I going to be, in 5 years?
<3 get dreads and have babies.
ReplyDeleteHere is the way I deal with this - "there is a time for everything under the sun" - http://www.drbo.org/chapter/23003.htm.
There is a time to get an education, there is a time to nurture a family, there is a time to volunteer at women's shelters - but not all together. Even when you stay home though you will find that you do have lots more time for things like writing letters to MPs, helping out women with new babies, organizing charity potlucks for hunger-fighting organizations, etc... Even if you have a baby every two years from 20 to 40, by 55 you're pretty much free to start a new "career" and get out there again in the trenches. You are your husband can spend your retirement years working as lay missionaries and alleviating poverty. But not all at once. Everything has its season.