I had demons - asking questions and feminism

I think two things were key in positioning my thinking about who I was and how I fit into the world when I was a teen.  The first was trips to Scotland.  We travelled there a couple of times and that was the first time I had a sense of identity.  How my heart loved the bagpipes and the misty greens.  You could be something more that just "white" and have a history.  That was cool.

The second was books.  Being an only child and an introvert I read a lot.  Whatever was there I read it.  I read Plato and Women Who Run with Wolves and Dosteyovesky.  This world in books amazed me.  My real world was pretty small.  We were strict Christians and the outside world was sinful and wrong but even knowing that I needed what was in those books.  I need to escape and to know more.  I stole the Dosteyovesky from the library because I could not even fathom how else I could have such an amazing book.  I needed to possess this.  I sort of lived this parallel life of good girl and reader and at some point those started to clash.

Usually it was little things and questions that got people annoyed with me.  Sometimes it was more serious, why was I always on display?  Why were people not as nice to me after I stopped being blond?  Why would I be raped for showing my bra strap?  (Maybe guys should just look at porn and leave me alone?)  But as I went to university, started dating and reading even more, the world I grew up in started to collapse.  When I asked questions about how women were being held to a higher moral standard, I was thrown out of my university Christian Group.  I was shunned.  After that experience I read even more and hung out with feminists and thought about my body as a place of discourse and listned to Ani Defranco - song by Alana Davis and realized that I wanted to live all of the 32 flavours.

"Squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster, I am 32 flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision so you might want to turn your head
'Cause someday you're going to get hungry and eat all of the words that you just said
I am what I am, I am 32 flavors and then some
God help you if you are an ugly girl
Course too pretty is also your doom
'Cause everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room
God help you if you are a phoenix and you dare to rise up from ash
A thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy while you are just flying past"

I also spent a summer in Russia, which really focused me on what I believed and what I believed becasuse other people were watching.  I realized that I did not believe much of what the church said, but that I still believed in god but not all the rules and that it was all a lot more nuanced that I had been told.  I started Grad school and went to the closest Church.  It was Lutheran and it was different.  I also met Joel and we talked a lot about god and church and life and feminism and identity.  I liked talking to Joel so much I married him and we kept talking about those things and it was exciting that there was somebody out there thinking about this stuff and ready to push me to be braver in standing up for myself and not worry that being a strong woman would get me in trouble and someone who helped me in my journey to find a word for my demons of worry.