A Road Less Travelled

I got an e-mail from my mother last week, saying that she thought of me because my nail apron came through the laundry. She knew it was my nail apron because I’d embroidered my initial in the corner. I happen to remember this embroidery. I was quite pleased with the blue and green flowery monogram on my practical canvas nail apron. I can be such a girl sometimes…

Thing is, I’m pretty sure it was the contrast that really appealed to me. Flowery embroidery on a soft pincushion would have nice, but it wouldn’t have satisfied me nearly as much as imposing girliness on this tough work tool.

I was thinking about this because a few days before that, Gabrielle pointed out that my answer about compliments on a recent Facebook tag was not entirely accurate. I said that I mostly get compliments on looking nice and being pretty cool for a girl. Gabrielle posited that these aren’t actually the compliments I get the most, they’re just the compliments that stick in my head the most, because those things are important to me.

Suddenly, large portions of my life clicked into place. When I was little, probably seven or eight, I read a book called Once Upon a Summer. One of the characters was described this way: “She could shinny up a tree as fast as any boy, too, tuckin’ her skirt in around her elastic bloomer legs in order to get it out of her way. She could also skip rocks and throw a ball. She would take a dare to walk the skinniest rail on the fence and outdo any fella at school. Yet somehow when she hopped to the ground and assumed her role as ‘girl’, she could be as proper and appealin’ as could be, and could give you that look of pure innocence fittin’ for a princess or an angel.”

I instantly decided that I wanted to be her someday. I wanted to avoid all the silly brainlessness of being ‘girly’ without sacrificing the frills. I wanted to indulge my interest in weapons and ninja without losing my ability to match a purse perfectly with my outfit. I wanted to be a warrior princess.

Now, none of this is really surprising, but there are a couple interesting realizations here. One, is how close to foundational this is for me. The primary tenet of my life is that Christ is King over everything, and the entire focus of my existence is on obeying and worshipping Him. One of the secondary tenets seems to be that I should be strong, intelligent, and brave WHILE being irrevocably female. It doesn’t sound so very strange when I put it like that, but sometimes it’s hard to embrace both sides of that in a fallen world.

The second weird realization for me is that I’m actually living this childhood dream. Sure, I’m not as cool at it as I always imagined, and it definitely impresses fewer guys than it did in my imagination… But still, I can go from talking weapons to color coordinating my plate with the rest of my outfit to plotting world domination and back to straightening my hair with nary a second thought. Because I really am that…well…bizarre, I guess. And still, the one and only Duct Tape Valkyrie.