peace

This has been a roller coaster, and the adventure's just beginning. Sent off the proposal Thursday night, my advisor had written me Friday morning say the writing was excellent and it was clear I worked hard on it.

DAMN right I worked hard on it. I worked so fucking hard on this. I wrote, re-wrote, edited, and researched, like I've never done before. When I found out the news I screamed. I jumped around. I cried. I danced like a madwoman. I didn't know what to do with myself. I love the feeling of achieving goals but there was something surreal about achieving this one in such a short time frame. Half the time I didn't think I could pull it off.

My final draft has now been accepted. I will send it out to committee members, they have two weeks to read it, then we meet in mid-May. My project's really coming together and I'm excited. The more I had to justify it, the stronger my position became. I am so proud to be a woman. All around the world women have fought for and achieved change.

Crossing boundaries. So much of my life has been about crossing boundaries. What else can you expect from a child who had lived in three different continents by the age of 6? I learned from a young age how similar people were, how different people were, and how to relate to everyone on some level. I learned to switch cultures at will; I learned to play the game. That's why when my advisor tells me to move activists statements down in my paper I comply. I can look like them, talk like them. But I'll never be one of them. I will move the activist part, yes, I will.. I will play by their rules while the fire burns within. I am capable of saying yes, I will do it that way, but as soon as I take ownership, like when it hopefully can be published, I will make my own rules.  But for now I will play their game, grinning to myself the whole way. No one can make me be untrue to myself.

Now I am determined to do more than cross boundaries; I want to transcend them, I want to shake them up. I want to fly. I want to relate to anyone, anywhere, at any time. I want to relinquish my fears, insecurities, and anxieties as much as possible. Life is just too damn short. I just turned 30 and I love it. I take a stand against our youth-obsessed culture to assert that I love my body more than ever, our bodies are miracles no matter what size, shape, color, etc, they are. I love my gray hairs. I refuse to give in to patriarchal and youthful standards of beauty. Plus, at 30, I have the pleasure of knowing that I have created exactly the life for myself that I want.

Yes there were times, I'm sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I grew tall and did it MY way. -Frank Sinatra
This was one of those times, definitely too much to chew, and I spit the doubt out with style (except toward the end where I felt myself becoming monster-like from lack of sleep, but I made it after all!) This is one of those times I call growth. Just as getting through hard times together can strengthen a friendship, getting through hard times makes my love for self more. I earned my self-confidence.