What is feminism to me?

I recently read a rage-filled fundamentalist post on women’s right to vote (and that women should not have that right) and I secretly thanked feminism for allowing me to be an individual in this society – or any society really.

So what does feminism mean to me? Does it mean “Yay I get to wear pants”? Sure, but that’s really just a side-joke.

It means my husband cannot quit MY job when he thinks I don’t do enough housework. He does not have the ability to cage me at the home and to rob me of my means to make money both for me and for my children (and potentially for him). It means that I will not suffer from the fact that I have no job experience, resulting in the fact that I have only two life choices: Divorce and poverty, or an unhappy marriage. It gives me the security that I have abilities which people are willing to pay money for.

It also means that I can get higher education. I can study at university in order to improve my market value and in order to improve my knowledge. It gives me a chance to decide what and who I want to be. It gives me the security that when everything is lost, my education will still be there.

It means that I can vote. I can vote for the candidate with the best program, the greatest vision, who shares my opinion or, yes, the candidate I find physically attractive. That’s how it is. It means that my opinion will count even if my justification for these opinions is based on superficial issues like looks. I’m not saying this is a good call, but that’s how it is: You cannot chose whether you like an opinion or not, you’ll have to live with others having them.

It means also that I can own things, buy things, make contracts and be a liable person by law. I do not disappear in the existence of my husband once I say “I do”. I am still allowed to exist as a person of my own. This is why I despise people who say things like “Mr and Mrs John Smith”. There is no Mrs John Smith. There might be Mrs Jane Smith.

Feminism means that my body is mine and nobody else’s. Not my husband’s. Not my child’s. MINE. I can do with it as I please. I can pierce it, draw on it, take it where ever I want. I can sleep with whom I want, at any time, or not. It protects me from being raped by my husband without appropriate punishment. It protects me from being forced to do things I do not want to do.

Feminism in its core gives me individuality at the core. It makes me a person with dreams, rights and a future. Feminism makes me human. It makes me – me, just as I want myself to be.

When the patriarchs express that feminism is evil, it is not the feminism they hate. It’s not the pants and the rights they hate. It is precisely the individuality.

Fundamentalist christianity cannot survive in an environment where there is individuality. Everybody must conform to rules and values for it to work. Everybody must submit, men and women alike. Those who do not submit are those who risk the system. Kids who talk back. Women who work. Men who have feelings. Individuals outside that perfect, Pearl-esque set of rules. Conform or be damned. Conform or suffer. Conform or die. Individuality? Uncheck that box as soon as possible. Die to yourself and move the remaining empty shell by the rules of the great puppet-master. Get on the stage and play your role, and by all means, hope it’s over soon.

I am here, reading, writing, thinking. Not because of anything the patriarchs did but because of something the feminists did. They made me what I am today. Thank you for that.

Spring and regret

The flu is going around right now and of course it feels like I caught it. I’m coughing, shivering and my ears feel somewhat infected. Oh well, I suppose it could be much worse, because I feel surprisingly fit. But because today is a “sick day”, I will try to catch up on some writing – something I really neglected lately.

Yesterday was somewhat of a down-day for me. I had talked to my mother and felt somehow weird after that. Not because she’d said anything mean really, we were chit-chatting for the most part. In fundamentalist circles, most news revolve around who’s courting, getting married, having a baby or opening a home business.

There are plenty of news really, the biggest being that my brother and his wife are expecting. This was only a mild surprise by now really, because they had gotten married last summer and that’s really a long time to wait for the good news in fundie-circles. His wife is only three months along, so there are no details as to gender etc! I’m excited for them – I know this was something specifically his wife had wished for and I think he’s very proud too (I didn’t talk to him personally yet).

There’s also a bunch of other news – You know the Wilfried’s oldest? He’s courting that Singer’s girl now. No, not the blonde, the red one. Anna, I think – and Max and Mary, old Smith’s daughter and the Brough’s boy, they’re having their second -  and so on.

I guess spring isn’t just a season of love in the normal world.

I don’t think Mom told me all these things to hurt me – to be honest, there really isn’t much else to talk about. She didn’t think any of it. She didn’t mean to rub anything in my face. She also asked a lot of questions about my studies – how it’s going, how I’m doing (grades not sent out yet! No idea!) and all that. She remarked that it would be good to have a lawyer in the family, in case they ever ran into problems. I smiled at that and remarked that the laws I study aren’t American laws, and while many are similar, I wouldn’t dare to help out in such a case because there are still very many laws that differ from our laws here. Just think of public nudity!

Afterwards I started thinking. You know. I’m sitting here, sipping my coffee, staring out the window. We had new snow just yesterday. My birthday’s coming up soon.

I don’t feel like I achieved much. To be honest, sometimes I doubt I’m in the right place. Sometimes I regret leaving. I think of the life ahead of me and wonder if that’s really what I wanted all along.

If you’re raised to believe that responsibility is not for women, it’s hard to imagine a life in which you’re fully responsible for everything you do. Every bad choice and decision can’t be blamed on your Dad, your husband or even God.

I keep wondering if it wouldn’t have been better to have married back then. Where would I be now? Would I sit with Anna and Mary, gossiping about diapers and housekeeping? Would I read recipes on the internet and pin crafty stuff on pintrest? Would I hug the little blonde girl who cries for me when she scraped her knee? Would I spend the evenings quiet and cosy, knitting stuff while my husband reads the bible to me? Wouldn’t I be happy to be cared for and live my life quietly until the day I die?

I think I would. Sometimes I feel that parallel universes really exist. It feels like there is only a thin veil through which I can sometimes get glimpses of the other side. But here’s the thing: You can’t change sides. Decisions made, your call. There’s no turning back now, only the responsibility you have to carry all by yourself.

Well. But then again – behind my occasional yearning for the known, the safe, that which I have been taught to believe in and considering good and honest – I remember TS Eliot:

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Wouldn’t I be whimpering all the time? I think I would. Nope, I think I’m going to prove Eliot wrong. The world doesn’t have to end with a whimper – but you yourself have to make it bang.

Back to my coffee. Even if this doesn’t work out the way I wished, even if everything ends up completely different from I could expect, there’s still the certainty that people rarely regret the things they do, most often, they regret those which they didn’t do (that’s a quote too, but I don’t know by whom).

Of not being good enough

Studying is the new praying. I’m having serious issues with studying; I actually study religiously. That might be a good thing for a normal, worldly person. But if you are from a bible freak family, religiously means something completely different.

There is never an ‘enough’ point, never a ‘done for today’, always one more prayer, one more article, one more book to read. It’s not that hard, studying law. Really, so far a lot of it has been memorizing things. I’m pretty good at memorizing things word-for-word, a great advantage I find when you study something like law, which is extremely memorize-y.

But I don’t find an end of the day. I can’t sleep well anymore because I feel it’s a waste of my precious studying time. It’s all I ever think about. The idea of not getting an A freaks me out. I don’t really know why, I suppose it is because I come from a community where if you didn’t have an A in purity and lifestyle and bible knowledge, you were a fail. It’s very much a “holier than thou” attitude, extended to studying. I feel very much like I did as a teen, wearing my A as a badge of honor. A scarlet letter in reverse, so to speak.

I’m feeling very bad these days. I hardly talk anymore when I see my friends and when I’m spoken to, I only bark “yes” in order to shut them up. I want to find some peace and stop the thoughts from hammering in my brain, stop my mental self from going through the shelfs of knowledge to detect that one little spot where information might be missing. I’m afraid to watch movies and read books out of fear that the new information might overwrite something more important (what the…??).

I’m feeling like my self is pulling me back into old behaviors where I need to be punished for ‘failing’, that failing being not having done enough on that day. I feel like I need some sort of consequence for my disobedience to my home-made plan of how much to do in a day. I feel that I’m actually craving pain on some level, thinking that it would give me motivation to keep going beyond the limits.

And at the same time I hate myself for not being cheerful enough, not being friendly and happy and all those things. I feel the need to apologize all the time, to anybody really. I, again, feel the pressure of conforming to those images of the woman handling everything with a smile and a cheerful attitude. Where they right? Is my place at home? Is this happening because women are not made for this? It’s hard to silence the voices creeping up on me, whispering that I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I should go back to what I’m made for. Suddenly, the biblical bubble looks so comfortable from outside. I have to remind myself that it’s not true and I know it. I have to remind myself

I can do it, I can do it.

Is it working?

Relationships after the purity cult

There are so many thoughts on the damage of the purity culture out there that I decided to evaluate some of my behaviour.

I think one of the major problems with purity culture is not necessarily that it suppressed sexual feelings in general but rather how these sexual feelings are ignored, and how that leads to devastating results.

Feeling sexual attraction toward someone is actually pretty bad in the purity culture. Of course they’d never admit that – they don’t tire of stressing how important physical attraction is, but what they actually mean by that is not necessarily sexual desire but beauty. Men are encouraged to look for someone they find beautiful. Women are encouraged to make sure their match is handsome, physically and characterwise. And that is exactly the problem. Beautiful and sexually attractive are not synonyms.

I don’t know about you, but there’s plenty of people I find beautiful, but not all of them are sexually attractive to me. And it works the other way around too; people whom I find sexually attractive aren’t necessarily beautiful to me.

Hence, while it may work out for some, marrying someone whom you deem beautiful does not tell you whether you will find him/her sexually attractive in the long run. As a matter of fact, I feel that sexual attractiveness is something that is systematically labelled a ‘bad thing’ in courtships.

As both men and women are encouraged to flee from sexual immorality, they actually flee from those people whom they find sexually attractive. A woman will do her best to kill all her desires for a man they sexually desire and end up rejecting them on a regular basis. This goes as far as interpreting advances by those men as attempts of the devil to succumb to sexual immorality. Likewise, a man will try to keep his ‘lust’ out of the picture, systemically avoiding women who cause him to lust – which is nothing more than a clear sign of sexual attractiveness. Instead they will seek for a woman whom they might find beautiful, but who also draws them closer to Jesus – a popular euphemism to avoid those women who are actually sexually attractive to them.

Of course, a sexual desire may be present in all of these people initially, considering that those are their first chances to gain sexual experience, the feeling of new and unknown, of absolute intimacy and, not to forget, the promise that everything will work out heavenly because they waited and fled from all sorts of sexual immorality. But initial attraction needn’t always last for years to come. When, after a few months of marriage, this promise of perfect sex is not fulfilled and the spouse loses the initial sexual attractiveness of the opposite gender in general, they may end up hitting rock bottom with the realisation that while their partner is beautiful, he or she could not keep the promise of ultimate sexual attraction.

Back to myself – I do not think that I would have ended up with a man like my boyfriend if I still followed the purity culture. He causes me to do things which are generally only permissible if you are a man. Fantasies, undressing him in my thoughts, looking at him and not seeing the (obvious) beauty of his face, his eyes, his expression, but instead lusting for whatever lingers a few inches lower, which is a body which many people might not consider objectively “beautiful” but rather as an average man. A body which I would not have permitted myself to find beautiful because it is tightly packed with tattoos. No, he might not have that objective perfect beauty of a six-pack and a flawless body, but neither have I and that’s something I can totally live with. Because I know that this person is extremely sexually attractive to me, and so am I for him despite my obvious flaws of a small chest and a body so skinny you might just mistake it for a boy’s. And fyi, I don’t even feel bad about it because I know that when he looks at me, he doesn’t see those flaws, neither does he think “well she has a beautiful face” like a good courtship boy should. No, I know that he lusts, and to be quite honest with you, I like it. I like seeing in his eyes that he can look at me and lust despite what I consider imperfect. I learned to appreciate the difference between being told “You’re beautiful” and “You’re hot”.

That doesn’t mean that you always feel this way, and it is by no means a guarantee that it will always stay this way. Of course I can still see all the other great things about him, and likewise he can see whatever makes me special to him. But I feel a good deal safer knowing that I am not with someone who has to kill all sexual desires for me in order to even deal with my presence.

I guess that the moral of this story is that if you put a ‘sin’ label on sexual attractiveness, don’t be surprised if you end up with a spouse you do not desire. I feel a lot of anger towards those in the purity movement who withhold this information from young couples, setting them up for a lifetime of self blaming and guilt.

Ex-Evangelicals and Catholizism

Many evangelicals are fascinated by the Catholic churches once they leave their old lifestyle. I realized that I share the same fascination. And today, I want to say something about that.

Living in southern Germany, I’m naturally surrounded by more catholics than I was back in the US. Many people here are catholic, the catholic churches are prominent buildings in pretty much every city, Catholicism is simply a part of the history of this area and that shows. If you take a hike in the woods, you’re likely to encounter old statues and tiny little chapels dedicated to Virgin Mary or another Saint.

The members of my German family are catholic as well, as is my boyfriend, hence I can hardly escape catholic life and ritual.

And I have to admit that I like it.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the mexican traditions of day of the dead – you have seen it, heard about it. What I didn’t know (and I’m sure you don’t know, either) is that there is a similar tradition that’s lived out in German catholic communities. Here, the catholics too decorate the graves of their loved ones with rather expensive flower arrangements. The graves are completely made up – softening the soil, planting new plants, scrubbing the stones, replacing broken decorations and so on. On All Hallows day (day after Halloween), the families go to the graves in the morning and the catholic priest hold a mass on the cemetery. It is impossible not to attend this if you have catholic family. Especially when there are multiple graves, you need everyone you can get. That is because on every grave of the family, at least one family member must be during the mass. Hence it is common for families to split up in order to have somebody by everyone’s grave. This year, it was me standing by the grave of my grandmother’s sister, who did not have any children of her own. After a round to visit every grave of the family and praying a short prayer, everyone went to their designated family member. As you can see, extended family counts as well, and it’s on you to take care of the dead when they don’t have any direct descendants. (picture: German cem before the beginning of the mass)

It felt weird, standing there, remembering a woman I never met (she died young), knowing that I was the only relative to think of her that moment. I could not help but fervently try to pray along Mary’s prayers as well as I could, which felt even weirder. But, despite the weirdness and unfamiliarity of all this, it felt good.

I liked standing there, the entire cem filled with people. Some graves had only one person standing next to it (like me), others had large families huddled around them.

And what felt even better? Realizing that catholics aren’t as “lunatic” as they’re made out to be. When the priest went into a lengthy prayer, asking God to take the sinners to heaven who weren’t ‘saved’ in their lifetime, praying for those who do not know the gospel and nevertheless act according to it in their best conscience, and pretty much for everyone to be saved despite their wrongdoings. Yes, Catholicism feels much more “real”, much more doable, much more just to the realities of life.

I do not think that I will become a catholic because, to be quite honest with you, right now I have no taste to actually “live” religion. But nevertheless, Catholicism is fascinating and, once you get over the evangelical viewpoint, very beautiful.

It’s time for us to be Hobbits

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

Once upon a time there were two little hobbit girls, a blonde and a red-haired one, living next door. Their land was beautiful and every day was filled with joy.

Then, one day, their hobbit parents met evil Lord G, who gave them the order to give each girl The Ring. The parents did as told. They said to the girls: “You must guard this Ring with all your being. This will give you power. This will make you special. Without it, you are nothing.” And, despite the fact that the girls didn’t really know what the fuzz was about, they accepted the Rings and proudly wore them.

They grew older together, and their friendship was still strong. And finally, one day, a handsome young man hobbit asked for the blonde hobbit girl’s hand in marriage, and for her Ring. At first the hobbit girls were excited, but it didn’t last long.

As they sat together, one day at the lake, the blonde hobbit girl expressed her grief to her friend: “I do not want to give this Ring away. It makes me strong and powerful. It makes me special. It makes me …. better than everybody else.” The red-haired hobbit girl was shocked. What was her friend saying?

You see, the blonde hobbit girl was blinded by the power the Ring gave her. She enjoyed walking around with it, people staring at her hand, people telling her how strong she was for taking the burden to wear that Ring. The red-haired hobbit girl felt the burden constantly. She did not like that people stared at her Ring, knew what it implied. She liked what it stood for, but she could not understand why she would need a Ring to be the person she wanted to be.

The closer the wedding day came, the worse the blonde hobbit girl acted. She was angry and mean, and she started to despite her hobbit fiance, who would soon take her Ring away. “My precious” she started to hiss, “it’s mine. Nobody can take it from me!” Oh yes, the hobbit girl was acting real strange.

The red-haired hobbit girl realized that she did not want to be this way. She decided to run away at night to destroy her Ring, so she could be free again. Free to do what felt right, without needing a Ring to signify it. So she packed her bags and left.

Soon after leaving her family, she came into deserted land, burned soil and a raging war and, far away from a high mountain, a looming eye watching her each and every step. And she knew the eye would soon send troops after her, to bring her back, to make her keep the Ring.

“I need a sword”, she realized. Lucky enough, she found a group of Elfs who were willing to help her. And even though she was imitated by their beauty and strength, she decided to follow them. And she realized that hobbit girls who had gone before her probably had not had the Elfs to help them. Yes, she was very lucky to have found a new group of friends.

Their travels were long and exhausting. Through deserts and over mountains they travelled, until they finally reached the volcano were she could destroy her Ring. And as she stepped into it, the flames bursting next to her, she realized that this was it.

The second the dropped the Ring into the fire, she finally felt its spell lift off her. She finally felt free. And even though she knew she could never return home, she was eager to see the new life waiting for her.

The blonde hobbit, meanwhile, got married and never forgave her husband for stealing her Ring. From time to time, on those lonely evenings, she sits and stares at the Ring in her hand, angry at the world and herself for not being honorable enough anymore to wear it. “My precious”, she hisses then, “you will be worn again – soon.”

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I think it’s time for all of us to be little red-haired hobbits. It’s not about abandoning values, it’s about abandoning structures used to rule over you, used to control you, used to make you feel bad. It’s not easy to just let go and give up things that are important to you in order to live a self-governed life.

If you are a young woman still struggling, I highly encourage you to reevaluate the tools used to keep you in control. If you already threw your ring into the fire, don’t tire of being an Elf – aka helping the other hobbits along the way.

Yes, I have a great passion for Lord of the Rings. Watch it! If you haven’t seen it yet, watch it asap! If you already have, watch it again asap!

The (polished) lives of others

I remember dreaming about life the way I had seen it in those P/QF books and magazines and occasional home making blogs. It’s funny because it was never that way at our house. But I always thought that one day, I would live one of those beautiful lives.

I’d have a pantry filled with homemade juices and marmalade and sauces and relishes. I’d have a beautiful, antique and yet modern kitchen. I’d have a great view from my kitchen windows, and I’d wear a beautiful apron. I’d be… hm. One of those fairytale housewives, I guess.

My life would be quiet, relaxed. I’d be busy decorating a beautiful home, not really worrying about money and how to get by. My husband would be thrilled to see my newest crafty decoration idea and I’d have people come over for tea, who would praise my exquisite taste and the heavenly homemade biscuits.

My living room would have one of those open fire places and no TV in it, a beautiful sofa and a large bookshelf with old books – funny enough, that shelf was filled with books I wasn’t encouraged to read. But hey, who cares, they were only decoration anyway. They would show my guests how polished my education was, how knowledgable and ‘classical’ I was. After all, those classics are the center of a good education!

Yes, people would be impressed by my family and me. After tea, the female guests would offer to help me in the kitchen, but I’d say no. I’d offer them to come to the kitchen with me anyway, and then I would show them the many jars filled with strawberry-vanilla-lemon jelly and blackberry-cherry marmalade and tomato relish (my secret ingredient was a red, sweet apple). They’d look at the jars and go “How on earth do you manage?” and I would just smile and say “Oh, you know, I just can’t stand not using up the things we grow in our garden.” (just to point them to the fact that I had a rich garden). I would fill up the plates with more biscuits, different kinds, and gracefully fly back into the living room, or the dining room. There’d be fresh flowers everywhere. And the women would ask me where I got this and that, where my antique teacups were from, and I would have a different story about everything, an amazing, magical, filled with adventure story.

And yes, my kids. How well-behaved they were, and how clean and neat and obedient and whatnot. How tidy their rooms were, how tidy the house was, how lush the gardens! Yes, I was truly the Proverbs 31 woman.

At the end of the day, my tall dark and handsome husband, who made assloads of money doing something real godly, would put his hands on my shoulders and gently kiss my neck and whisper that I was truly the wife of his dreams and no other even came close to me.

Yes, I would enjoy those moments that made me feel so superior to everybody else. I would brag about it, discreetly, a constant, charming smile on my face, my beautiful hair naturally falling perfectly on my shoulders, my dress so polished and modern. My beautiful husband and kids, my beautiful self, my beautiful home. Oh everything would be beauty. And I would walk past the other P/QF trailer trash and show them that if you REALLY had God in your life, you could be the same. No, they weren’t as godly as I was. They weren’t. I was the true picture of what God did for his followers. Yes, I was better. Better than all of them. I was more sacred, had more godly beauty, more blessed. And they would know, and they’d crawl back into their messy holes and beg God for forgiveness for whatever they had done to deserve less than me.

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Thinking back, this makes me despise myself. I always dreamed to be one of those women. You know them, they are in every church. Except, back then, I was the trailer trash girl, crawling back into her hole and into her messy life, wondering why God didn’t give us the money and space we needed, why it was always too much for us to do, why, no matter how hard we tried, we could never have the fancy china and the old books and the crafty ideas.

I was filled up with rage because God didn’t keep his promise. And then we were there, left in the dark, looking at those polished lives of the woman who were truly graceful and blessed.

We were the ones envying gardens and staring at the beautiful kitchens. We were the ones to be gifted that strawberry-vanilla-lemon jelly, with a pitying smile and a “I got more than we can eat!”, or that tomato relish, with a wink and a “A big, ripe, red apple is the secret ingredient!”.

I was the one of the sideline, knowing that they were better, and hoping that I’d join them one day.

It’s not just purity that’s turned into a contest. It’s all of it. Who’s the purest, who has the most godly, most proverbs-31 house with the beautiful stuff in it, who has the best husband, who has most blessings from god.

I was despicable. I’m happy I’m out of that pressure. I don’t have to despise anybody anymore – not the poor P/QF families who think that they don’t need all that stuff to be happy (but actually, they do), not the families who can boast with their blessings of beauty and craftiness and tidiness. I pity them, even. Because both sides are never satisfied. Both sides are striving to show everybody what God can do by hoarding up blessings, both in form of children and of possessions. They think they are beyond materialism, but they aren’t. In fact, they sell it as “Godly, beautiful, set apart feminine lifestyle”.

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As I am writing this, I’m sitting on my made bed, covered  in h&m sheets (I love them!), a room filled with stuff that was gifted to me, that I fixed up. That doesn’t quite fit, is always a little off. Now, I will go into my old but homely kitchen, take two cups out of the shelf – two different looking ones, because we do not have two cups of the same design on that shelf – and make a cup of coffee with my good old-fashioned coffee machine. One for me, one for my roommate. And then, who knows. Maybe we’ll just go shopping. Because, fortunately, we do not have a garden to harvest, jellies to cook, or cookies to bake. No, we are free of all those pressures – at least for today.

I hear the new cafe has amazing cookies. Maybe we’ll try those.

Concepts of “Home”

Libby posted some thoughts on integrating into mainstream culture after you left fundamentalist culture. Some of the things she said made me think – she compared living in the mainstream American society to moving to a different country. I think that’s a great way to explain how we all feel to outsiders. But I want to add some more thoughts from the perspective of someone who actually went to live outside US culture altogether.

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There are many people around here who have asked me if I’m homesick sometimes. It’s a puzzling question for me – am I homesick?

Some people ask me if I want to go back “live in America” some day – and what I miss about “America”.

Some people ask me if I miss “the American Way of Life”.

Yes, I have to use quotation marks. Because my answer would have to be NO. Not at all. People often assume that it’s because I enjoy the “free stuff” around here so much – a typical stereotype here is that most lower class Americans have no health insurance and higher education because they can’t pay for it. They assume that I’m from one of those families (which I am) and that I’m a sort of “health insurance refugee”. I let them think that because the truth is so much more complicated.

When I think of “America”, I think the things Europeans tend to think. I think of LA and California, Las Vegas and New York, I think of millions of lights and yellow cabs and Elvis and Rap and lots of drunk teens, rich stars and some real poor ghettos, of 9/11 and war and Barack Obama.

The place I lived, the way I lived, that’s far, far away from America. The mainstream America is as strange to me as if I never lived there. All I know about it is the fundamentalist way of looking at it. America scares me – it’s a strange country. It’s a nation I have little in common with, except my language and my passport. If America called me tomorrow and asked me to give my citizenship back, I’d agree – not because I don’t want it, but because I would understand why they wouldn’t want me.

So no, I am not homesick for America.

And then there are others who ask me if I feel “home” here. And again, that’s a complicated thing.

Yes, I do, as much as an immigrant can feel at home. Because that’s just what I am. I share no common “memory” with people my age – school, TV shows, experiences, nothing. I’m a stranger to this culture, not as much as I used to be, but still.

I got used to doing things the German way – being right on time (not a minute later!), accepting the perceived “rudeness” of people (which, in reality, is just painful honesty most of the time), dealing with relationships of all sorts, work ethic, political views, and so on.

Yes, most Germans find me to be very “integrated”. I’m good at pretending.

But there’s still something – this longing that  can’t explain – this feeling that this isn’t quite my “home”, this feeling that I’m not part of everything.

This town is very popular with tourists. We had many Americans coming through and I tend to avoid them. They give me a strange feeling. I always recognize them instantly, they don’t even have to talk. The way they look, dress. I can tell they’re American. And when they speak, even when I’m prepared for it, still makes my heart jump. It sounds a bit like “home”. On one hand I’m drawn to them – I want to be close and listen and just… hear them speak English. On the other hand I’m afraid they’d talk to me, that they’d be able to tell that I’m not as American as they are.

Always being the one who’s a bit different.

Belonging but not quite, everywhere.

Is there a home for someone who doesn’t belong anywhere?

Is there a place for somebody who has different roots, no matter where they go?

What is home, when your home is a place that doesn’t exist in reality? When your home used to be a palace in the sky, built by religious fundamentalists? Is there a home for those of us who willingly tore it down to be free? Or aren’t we just what we are, what we’ll always be, displaced people trying to grow a second pair of roots, after the first pair dissolved into nothing but thin air?

Help, I hate romance!

I recently had a bit of a girl talk evening with my room-mate. We were talking about D’s work (because he is doing so well and will probably get promoted soon) when she burst into a big smile.

“So….. you think he’s marriage material?!” she grinned.

“Uh. Hm. Yeah sure.”

And with an even bigger grin: “So, can you imagine getting married to him one day?”

And I went silent. Thinking. And then I said.

“I’m not sure. No I can’t imagine myself being married some day at this point. No.”

Isn’t it funny how our own honesty shocks us at times? If she wouldn’t have asked me, I wouldn’t have thought about it. Of course she wanted to know why not. And here’s what I feel like right now.

D is a great person – hard worker, gentle, smart, funny, sexy, understanding, awesome with kids. He’d be a great husband, and an even better Dad. I wouldn’t trade him for the world.

But I’m afraid of marriage. I’m afraid of what marriage is to me, what I have been taught marriage is. You see, I only know two extremes: The fundamentalist marriages, and the supposedly terrible secular marriages. I don’t want to be a submissive, meek wife and lose everything I dream of these days. I don’t want to go back to where I’ve been. I don’t want to waste everything I sacrificed just to end up back in the old ways. And I also don’t want one of these marriages the fundamentalists talk about: The man lazy and fat, cheating on his wife, going to swingerclubs, terrible kids. It’s all I know, and I want neither.

I realize there’s got to be more but I just can’t imagine what it would look like. I have just tasted freedom and marriage seems like a prison now.

After I explained this, she pulled a grimace and said “But I thought you wanted kids at some point?”

“Yeah I do”

“So, what, are you going to go European on us and just have them out of wedlock?” she giggled.

“I don’t know” is what I said.

“I think that would be the best solution” is what I felt like saying.

Funny how my own honesty shocks me.

Up and down, up and down…

I have learned many things in those last years. I have changed the ways I perceive certain things. I reevaluated much in my life.

One of the most important lessons I have learned is the lesson about happiness and sadness. What I’m about to write might seem like old news to many, or the girlish musings of an inexperienced fundamentalist, but it helps me so to remind myself of this whenever need be.

If you had more money than you could ever possibly spend, of what value would that money be?

If you had infinite water and food, of what value would that be, when you do not know hunger?

If you had infinite, constant happiness at all times, how happy would you really be?

The value of something can only appreciates when you know the opposite.

Happiness means nothing without sadness.

I have had very very dark days in my life. Days where I couldn’t look into the future because I simply could not see anything good coming my way. I couldn’t imagine happiness ever again.

I remember a day earlier, this spring, when I was so very happy. I hadn’t thought of anything bad ever coming my way for days, I was ecstatic, glowing, feeling like I could take the whole world with me (and eat one of those tasty McDonald’s cakes at the same time). And on exactly that day I realized: This. This moment only exists because I know the bad days. And because I know the bad days will come again. They’re lurking right around the corner, waiting for me. They will come.

But that didn’t make me sad at all – isn’t that funny? I was there, smiling, knowing that because those bad days will come soon enough, I have to value these happy days. These happy days in which I’m not bothered with anything that scares, hurts, breaks me.

For every up, there is a down. And then an up again. And down. That’s how it is, and it’s good that way.

And suddenly I’m able to do something I couldn’t imagine before: I can value sadness and hurt. I can sit here and be sad and depressed, and even crying, and I know that this won’t last forever. There will be an up again. There will be a day (it’s actually lurking around the corner) where I will smile and look at the sunshine and the beauty of life and my heart will be beating fast, because I will be so, so happy again. And sadness becomes eagerness. Becomes anticipation for the good to come.

I’m writing this post right now in a situation I can feel will bring a down. To be quite honest, I could easily avoid getting into it. I could be quiet (and meek, urghs!) and sit on my mountain of happiness just to realize that it isn’t worth anything. So instead, I will just jump off it, hopefully not break a leg, and get ready to climb a new mountain.

It will be dark and scary, but there’s always more to come.