barbies & ninja turtles.

Growing up I had two different options. I could either stay inside with the girls and play princess, or I could run around outside and roll in the mud with the little boys up the street. My decesion making process was a combination of personal taste and convience. True, I did enjoy the company of male friends more so than my female friends, but I also happened to live around 4 little boys who were consitantly wrecking havoc around the neighborhood. Polly pocket just couldn't hold a candle to that kind of fun, so it wasn't long before I wanted to join forces with the 4 boys. I was already friends with Jake and Thomas, so it was pretty easy for me to fit in. Like a pack of wolves I was adopted in as one of their own, and we were like one big happy family.

Once I started 2nd grade I started getting my first real exposure to the other girls. I made friends with a few of them, but never hung out with them in a group. Not that it mattered, I had my pack...the boys.. and I never got invited to any of their stupid tea parties anyway. My distaste for playing "house" at recess and choosing to play tackle football during touch football always got me into trouble, and the other girls cringed when I shoveled mashed peas and ketchup into my mouth at lunch to gross them out while making my friends roar with laughter. 

Yes, my place has been determined, (despite the fact that between the ages of 3 and 5 I loved all things girly) I had a reputation among my 'dudes'. I was treated as an equal...sometimes they even forgot I was a girl. I liked it this way...and I was careful to never draw any attention to myself that might remind them that I was different. Most of the time I was happy with my lifestyle. I miss those days of ninja turtles, Nintendo 64, spontaneous wrestling matches over the red controller, and all the unorganized kickball games we had.

But to be honest, deep down inside...I still freakin' loved tea parties. I had dolls too...and barbies...lots and lots of barbies. I secretly would hang out with my new found girlfriends and we would play with my barbies. But I hid this from the guys. Last thing I wanted was for them to make me be the pink piece in all the board games and laugh because I'm a cooty infested girly girl who only pretends to be tough. Even though deep down I wanted to trade in my blue game piece for that pink piece so carelessly tossed aside!

I remained a tomboy until I was in 4th grade. It was then that I discovered Bonne Bell lipgloss, The Spice Girls and glitter gel pens. Maybe I wasn't a TRUE tomboy. Sure I was always picked first when we played tackle football cause I could hit hard as a 9 year old girl, but really I was just a rough and tumble kind of girl who still wanted to hug a teddy bear at the end of the day. By this point I had found 3 girls that I had become best friends with. They liked to play with my new Barbie and Ken dolls but they also liked to tie a rope around Barbie's neck and bind her to the treehouse in the backyard. Looking back there was nothing wrong with me for wanting a barbie dream house AND a nerf gun 2000. The older I got, the more I (with acceptance from both guys and girls) became less of a tomboy and more of a girly girl...but still clung tightly to some of my "boyish" ways. Now as a 23 year old little girl...I love to watch football on Sundays, sit nosebleed section of a UK basketball game screaming at the refs "YOU SUCK!", beating my dad in burping contests and I love wearing basketball shorts past my knees...but just as long as my nails are painted hot pink. 

unorganized rant.

I've been taking online classes for the past 3 and a half weeks and I have had to go to my campus' library to research. The campus is totally empty, with everyone being gone for the summer. Directly after work I end up at the library, alone and being alone a good portion of the day for days at a time has really caused me to be still, think, pray and search my own heart. The "reality checks" I have been experiencing don't seem to stop since I've been here. Up until a couple of days ago, I was walking an empty campus in the dark... utterly alone with my thoughts and prayers. There have been several times where spiritual slaps in the face have left me in tears. Tears of joy, tears of regret, tears of guilt and tears of forgiveness. He knows what it takes to get my attention...He has it. Something that has been heavy on my heart has been differentiating who I am vs. what I am as well as others.

When does someone with cancer suddenly become a cancer patient? Or how does someone who eats too much suddenly seem fat? Where does our society decide that an individual's actions or traits define who they are or what they want to be? In this world, how can one look at another and decide "what" they are, rather than who they are?

No one wants to look in the mirror and see an object looking back. I would never wake up one morning and go to my bathroom to see a "failure", "student", or "ex-girlfriend" looking at me through the mirror. Since i know myself well enough, i know that there is more than that to me and that these nouns are only part of a pool of words that can be used to describe maybe a small aspect of me. (i am forgiven, i am HIS, i am blessed..) I'm sure anyone else could agree - they don't look at themselves as a collection of words, but a person.

When i look at other people, why do i still see "students", "superiors" or "crowds" looking back. No one is an individual, and its my goal to function beyond this. Why is it one person's right to decide who another person is, or should be? 

So, to overcome this, i sometimes try to make up stories about the people i see. Maybe that girl eating too much is really a recovering anorexic, and this is her taking power over herself. Maybe that person with cancer has decided not to let their disease control them, but rather move forward in life. I'll look at a distressed man in a suit walking across the street, and instead of deeming him a high-powered "jerk," he might just be a student on break from a part time job, in a hurry to catch the bus or meet his girlfriend for lunch.

By giving depth to people, whether its true or not, the urges to want to decide who someone is without their consent becomes more difficult. I can look at them as if they were human beings, too - even if it means lying to myself. I don't want to keep skimming through a crowd and deciding "who is what" without knowing who they are. I'd rather just believe that everyone is fighting their own battles and working towards their own goals - individually, separately, and with strength. 

I don't ever want to be just a face to someone else, so why am I? ...how else can you overcome the mindset of a people without starting with your own adjustments? 

have you ever been deemed as something you wouldn't consider yourself to be? Do you do this to people without realizing it? Why do you think we, as a culture, do this? And for the record... don't just call it human nature...thats just the excuse to continue our actions and call it an instinct.