if you smile at me, i will understand

I've been wondering if it's time to close out this blog. I have entered a new stage of my life where these kind of introspective blog posts hold less meaning for me. I'd like to continue blogging, but in a much more light hearted way that's a little less personal, and one that mirrors my new life, my new body and my new friends. Life is no longer a struggle and I'm not just squeaking by.

If I started something fun and colorful and silly would y'all read it? Or would I just be typing into space for no one to read?

i wonder if she knows

I know I've been absent from here for a while. I started this post to write about how I was negotiating the world, but specifically, my marriage as a feminist. Although I no longer have that marriage, I'm still negotiating the world as a feminist, but things feel enormously different. I feel like I've become Feminist 2.0, my new understanding of who I am and how I should enteract with the rest of the world in order to achieve the results I want.

Let's start here. Nearly all of my feminist beliefs, at one point, could be boiled down to this point made by Simone De Beauvoir in The Second Sex.

"To emancipate woman is to refuse to confine her to the relations she bears to man, not to deny them to her; let her have her independent existence and she will continue none the less to exist to him also; mutually recognizing each other as subject, each will yet remain for the other an other."

A little more briefly, my main claim to feminism was this. There are men, there are women and there are variations that are in between, both or neither of those things. With little or no need to categorize or define gender or sex, also meaning little or no need to compare them to each other or to create one standard by which the other was judged, then we could all flourish and lead our most productive and happiest non-oppressed lives.

However, at some point a few months ago, I had a revelation. The issue, in my view, wasn't that we were categorizing, defining and comparing men and women, but that we as a society were fixated on trying to draw a line between masculinity, men and the male gender as well as feminity, women and the female gender.

I've discovered that I believe, among all the things I believe about God and the universe and our purpose in the world, that there is a cosmic balance between the masculine and the feminine, not a cosmic balance between men and women. All of us, regardless of sex, gender, orientation or age are composed of some parts feminine, some parts masculine. For many of us, we might find that we are far more one than the other, but I cannot see that one could exist without traits of both. The union of masculine and feminine is the resolution of cosmic unrest. We balance this within ourselves, we balance it with others in our romantic relationships, in our friendships, in our relationships with our family, with our goals and desires, our very being.

Okay, I know this all sounds kind of yin yang-y. But what I'm trying to say was that I found a lot of difficulty in arguing that we should stop worrying about the gender binary. And for the most part, we should. But it's not the gender binary that is the problem, it's the insistence that men are masculine and women are feminine. It's an inability to let people be people without holding them to these defined standards.

...to have independent existence.

Crap. I'm back where I started. I'm not very good at blogging about feminism. Maybe I should get a hobby and blog about that.

I guess the issue isn't so much that I don't believe what I did before, rather that I have a fuller understanding of it. And that I've come to appreciate the masculine and feminine within myself, and the masculine and feminine in others. And I'm learning to love the things about myself that I no longer view as contradictions, but part of a beautiful balance that makes up who I am.

Also. New "about me". (scroll down)

not one of those who can easily hide

"I don't have much money, but boy, if I did, 

I'd buy a big house where we both could live."

how I used to be

I haven't really blogged about weight loss yet because I'm still pretty uncomfortable talking about it, but let's just say I have shed a couple pounds recently. Like most people, the weight had crept on over the years with a few significant life events really adding some stones to the scales until I finally reached my breaking point.

As the weight has come off the celebration has been focused on where I was in life at each of these weights. So for example, reaching the weight I was at my wedding, or the weight I was when I played rugby, or most recently, the weight I was when I started college. And this morning when I noted to myself that I'd finally shed my freshman 15, it dawned on me that this isn't about going back in time at all. Why am I moving backwards, rewinding my experiences and my knowledge to a time when I was less me, both physically and mentally?

No, this journey is about moving forward. It's about who I am today and who I'll be tomorrow. It's about being lighter physically and mentally and all the spaces in between. No longer am I going to speak about my weight in terms of where I was when I was this size in the past. It's the size I am now, and that's all that matters.

on wedded bliss

I've been officially legally separated for 3 months. As anyone who's experienced such life events knows, the separation begins long before the boxes get packed and the contract gets signed. So this is not a recent event in my life.

The number one question I get asked is: "Why do you still wear your wedding ring?"

To clarify, I don't still wear my wedding ring. I wear a silver band that I bought after my separation. Now that I have my diamond band back, I do occasionally wear it, but I don't wear my engagement diamonds, and most days of the week I just wear the plain silver band.

At first I told people I just felt more comfortable with wearing it since I'd been wearing a band for so many years, or I'd say something like "It's just a ring, it doesn't mean anything."

But, the truth about why I still wear a wedding ring is much more prophetic, and honestly it's sad but it's raw and true.

I still wear a wedding ring because it validates me.

And that's ironic, because if there's anything the last 6 months of my life has taught me, it's that I have far more self-worth than can be defined by my relationships with others; a true purpose for being on this Earth by myself. I have no intention of speaking of my marriage in a way that describes it as a burden or a mistake but to define myself as me and me alone has been incredibly freeing.

And yet....taking off that ring makes me feel somehow...unloved. Unworthy. Incapable. Scared. Marriage validated my worth in a way I understand much more now that I'm trying to shed its bonds. It's prohetic because that's certainly no reason to get married in the first place, and it makes it even harder to let go when it's time. I won't speak for him, but I knew it was time nearly a year before we set the separation into motion. I believe he feels the same. Letting go of that validation was much harder than letting go of the actual marriage.

I don't regret a second of my marriage. I don't regret that we made vows in front of our family and friends and I don't regret that we ended it. I would never regret falling in love and I would never regret making the most adult decision I've ever made.

I can't bring myself to take it off. I feel like I can conquer the world now that I'm free from marriage, and yet, the ring is my safety. My validation of worth. I know in my heart that's not the source of my worth, but I guess I'm just not ready to present myself to the world that way.

It's a process. I never expected it to be like a lightswitch. It's been a beautiful journey of self-discovery, even if the very thing whose absence has set me free is giving me the freedom to be myself.

shine in your church, gathered today

The Obama administration believes that contraception should be offered to women as a means of improving public health and women's autonomy. The Catholic church would be violating one of their strongest helded beliefs by offering contraception to its employees and affiliates. (link)

This is the kind of dilemma I face as a Catholic feminist who holds the separation of church and state as an indispensible virtue of government and religion.

I believe that the availability of contraception is directly correlated to the improvement of women's health. I also understand why the Catholic church is against contraception and I fully support their position on denying the use of contraception in the confines of being faithful. No seriously though. I get it. I understand why arguments such as "but contraception use reduces abortion rates" and "but 92% of all Catholic women have used birth control" don't hold an ounce of water against "contraception is against the teaching of the Catholic church".

And yet, the feminist in me is cheering for birth control.

As tomorrow begins the season of Lent, a time of reflection and fasting, and for me the beginning of of my 10th year in the Church, I'm going to be seriously trying to figure out how to reconcile these differences in who I am. Maybe I'll never see an end to this struggle, but it seems to me like I'm unable to keep them as seperate facets of my life and so I keep trying to blend the two as if they could possible exist within one person.

where I've been...

A couple people have suggested that I blog about my separation. When I started this blog I vowed to myself that it would not become my personal diary, and for the most part, I've kept that promise. The problem now is that I have nothing to blog about.

I think that I may write something meaningful when I'm ready to publish some of my feelings, but that time hasn't come yet. Stay tuned. :)