My Story, Part 4: An Affinity with Mulan (And Not Just Because We Both Have Black Hair)
You know that song from the Disney movie, Mulan?
Who is that girl I see
Staring straight back at me?
Why is my reflection
Someone I don’t know?
Must I pretend that I’m
Someone else for all time?
When will my reflection show
Who I am inside?
As if learning to walk in the new shoes I had been given as wife and mom in a new and different town weren’t hard enough, here I was, this citified heathen turned Jesus-lover, trying to learn how to trade places with a more modest, conservative, Godly version of myself so I could fit into this more modest, conservative, Godly town.
Next thing I know, I’m picking up things that seemed characteristic of Godly women in my new habitat. Things like drying fruit. Making casseroles. Cooking in crockpots. How ‘bout just plain cooking. Wearing down vests. Taking my kids to county fairs. Saying, “right” instead of “tru dat” or “hello” instead of “wassup”. Stopping to pray with people in the middle of the grocery store.
And actually, there is really, truly nothing wrong with this picture. In fact, many of the new things I had picked up fit right in line with our vision for our family and the legacy we wanted to create. They were “good” things!
So what was the friggin’ the problem?
Welllll, the problem was that I felt like I was losing who I was. I was striving to change for the better but also felt like I was emptying myself of the individual person God made me as.
I often found myself asking:
What the heck am I doing here? Possessing a lifetime of private school education and having NO CAREER to show for it? Instead, folding laundry and cleaning toilet bowls? THAT is a noble and high calling? Far away from home in a diversity-lacking town where I feel like an alien? Doing what!? Watching livestock being shown at a county fair? Drying fruit? While wearing a down vest? And driving a Suburban? Where did those miniature, people-like creatures strapped to the middle-row seat come from? Yelling out something that sounds like, “MAMA!!!”? Reading blogs on homeschooling and biblical womanhood instead of US Weekly and People? Googling recipes for all the different types of cuts from the dead cow sitting in the garage freezer? What’s a chuck roast? People eat Bambi!? Where’s the girl who used to live in this body? What happened to Lil’ P from The Valley? WHO AM I???
Below are the links to each part of the “My Story” series:
You Are Reading My Story: Part Four