When Words Aren't Enough

My mom is dying.

Just typing that doesn't seem real. Doesn't feel possible.

My smart, funny, beautiful, loving, humble, gracious mother sang "Happy birthday" to my twin brother and me for the last time tonight.

Barring a miracle, today was my last birthday with my mom.

I'm only 28. My younger brother is only 23. I secretly feel guilty about how much more time my twin brother and I had with her. Mom went back to work when I was in middle school. I had a SAHM for the first 12 or so years of my life.

I cry at the most random times.

I also suddenly understand maybe how family members can fight over family possessions. I'm sure my mom's sisters won't all be thrilled that she's leaving me most of her diamond and sapphire jewelry, although I did suggest my SIL (twin's wife) receive one of the two necklaces. I'm also sure my mom's sisters won't believe that I care about the stories behind her jewelry. I don't want the jewels; I want the ring my parents picked out together when they got engaged. I want the earrings Daddy gave Mommy for their first anniversary, especially since he totally faked her out. I want the bracelet Daddy used to break the news to Mom that we were leaving sunny California for small town South. These are the stories I've made my parents tell me time after time, year after year. They're the stories I'll tell anyone who will listen when I want to share how much my parents love each other.

I want to know all the stories, and now I'm scared that I  won't know which questions to ask my mom before it's too late. I went through a few old battered pieces that I knew had stories and wrote them down with her the other day.

My mom's mom, my last surviving grandparent, died last September. Which of her stories are  now lost?

I'm home for a week, and my goal is to help my mom write her book, The Gifts of Brain Cancer.

While I love how loved she is, and how so many people want to visit her, I also want to shoo everyone away and just let me sit with my mom and get her book on paper.

I know where to go to get it formatted. I know where to look to hire a book cover designer. I know the entire process of getting her book on Amazon as a self-published work.

But she has to write it first, and I have to help her.

She's lost total mobility on her left side. She's still doing what she can with her right arm, but she's so incredibly weak. At least she's write-handed, so she can write things if needed. But her handwriting is atrocious, and there just isn't time to let her hand write the rest of her book. She's already spent a few hours with a good friend of hers, going through the handwritten pages she's done so far, and letting her friend type them up.

I hope one day I can be surrounded by bouquets of beautiful flowers for a happy reason, or no reason at all. I'm not even sure how many we have now. Five? But it seems like you only get showered with flowers when your world is falling down around you.

I feel like I've been so callous and uncaring in the past when people my age lost parents. Yes, I knew it was sad, and tragic, especially one neighbor who lost both of her parents to cancer within a few years of each other. But I didn't get it. If I met someone who already was without a parent, I spared a short thought, "That sucks" and moved on.

My dad was around my age, if not younger, when his dad died. I always knew my grandfather died young, in only his 50s, and I always wished I could have known him. But I was thinking about my grandmother. I never thought about what it was like for my dad to lose his dad in his 20s.

It doesn't seem real. It can't be real. Only my grandmother could out-sparkle and out-purple my mom.

I feel like I'm going to be the only one left. Yes, I'm my father's daughter in many ways, but I'm a Norwegian woman. I've always felt a special bond between me, my mom, and my grandma. I call us by my grandma's maiden name, not her married name aka my mom's maiden name.

I wanted so much to have my mom with me whenever I have a baby. I've wanted my own baby for so long, but Beau and I wanted a few years to adjust to married life. Plus my Crohn's has been so bad that my body probably couldn't healthily gestate a fetus right now if I tried.

My grandma stayed with my parents for six weeks when my twin brother and I were born. I always hoped my mom would stay with me for a few weeks when it was my turn.

I wish I could stay with my parents longer than a week. But I have to start Remicaide (an IV infusion of several hours) next Tuesday. At least I'll be back, with Beau and his parents, the last weekend in June.

My parents accept planning that far in advance, so I'm very cautiously optimistic that I'll have my mom for a few more weeks. The doctors wouldn't or couldn't give us a timeline.

If you've read my ramblings all the way through, thank you. Please keep my mom, my dad, and our whole family in your thoughts and prayers.

Belle, the Disney Princess

You know who you remind me of, Belle? 

A Disney princess.

This is hands-down the best compliment I’ve ever received.

I know this might seem unusual coming from such an outspoken feminist, but I can’t help it. I love all things Disney, and all things princessy. Disney princesses are the best.

With my tiara and fan in Toronto

I’m obviously aware that the earlier Disney princesses aren’t the best of role models for little girls, and most critiques of my favorite princess (Belle, duh) suggest she suffers from Stockholm syndrome. The earlier Disney princesses are very passive, and even the later Disney princesses mostly end up married… to men, of course. Disney is very heteronormative.

via pink-martini on tumblr, created prior to Tangled or Brave

 

But does that mean there isn’t a place for Disney princesses in little girls’ and even grown women’s lives?

The Ones You Love the Most Wound You the Deepest

Dear H, 

I'm sorry that I'm not talking to you right now.

I'm sorry that I missed your college graduation. You know, the one that took place four years after my own. Even though we're twins. Even though you started college with more college credits than I did, since your school accepted dual credit courses from high school and mine didn't. Since my school actually understood that those classes were bullshit and not taught on a college level at all. I might have started college with less credits than you had, but I then used them to graduate with a double major and a minor.

I'm sorry that despite all the maturity and growth you've managed since high school, you're still an asshole. And a misogynist. 

I'm sorry that you think consensual sexual activity and consensual physical affection contribute to rape culture. I'm not sorry that I'm proud of all the men and women I've kissed. I'm not sorry for being proud that I've kissed people from multiple countries. I'm not sorry that Beau and I like to cuddle, and to hold hands, and to kiss in public.

I'm sorry that you apparently have no idea what rape culture is.

I'm sorry that you're clueless in your own culpability with rape culture. Like sexually harassing me for years. And then offering a half-assed apology a few months ago, filled with excuses and justification for your past behavior. Like telling me you didn't think it was okay for me to show cleavage because you didn't want guys to treat me the way you and Jon treated girls who showed cleavage. Completely ignoring the fact that the way you and Jon treated girls in high school was wrong, period, and they didn't "deserve it" because they happened to show cleavage.

I'm sorry that you still know nothing about feminism, despite having two parents and a twin sister who are feminist.

I'm sorry that you've made so many fucked up decisions that you make Mom think she did a bad job as a parent. The only mistakes she made as a parent were coddling you and letting you get away with treating me like shit because she worried about your "fragile self-esteem."

I'm sorry that I can only talk candidly about how horrible you were and how bad you still are on my anonymous blog. Because I actually give a shit about you, even though you don't deserve it, and I don't want to ruin your relationship with our mutual friends, even though you don't deserve them in your life.

I'm sorry that I didn't stand up to you when we were younger. I'm sorry that I didn't tell our mutual friends in high school how evil you were then. I'm sorry that I let your feelings come before my own.

I'm sorry that I called Daddy when you pulled a knife on me and threatened me with it. I should have called the police. Maybe you wouldn't have treated so many women like shit if you'd been scared straight at 16.

I'm sorry that the only times you've ever really cared about me were when I was sick with Crohn's. I'm sorry that the only real tenderness you've shown me were when I was 15, weighing 77 pounds, and just wanted to feel pretty again. I'm sorry that the only time you've ever made me feel like you actually love me was when I was in the hospital, and you drove nine hours overnight to come visit me, and then take me home.

I'm sorry that I'm just now realizing that my emotional needs are more important than being close to my family, for the sake of the family.

I'm sorry that I won't ever talk to you again, unless you issue a genuine apology for what you said to me about feminists and rape survivors, or unless your brain tumor comes back.

I love you. It's not enough for me to have you in my life.

Love, B    

Why I'm a Feminist (Part Three): Gender Inequality Makes Me Angry

Assholes like to belittle women’s rights activists, dismissing us as “angry feminists.” Normally I bristle against stereotypes of any kind, but especially ones that try to limit who I am as a person. Just like being a virgin doesn't make me frigid or judgmental, being a feminist doesn't make me a bitch or a man-hater.

But the assholes have one thing right. 

I am angry.

I’m angry that the War on Women isn't just a political catchphrase. Republican legislators across the country, at the federal and state level, have introduced, and often passed, legislation 

• to force women seeking an abortion to undergo unnecessary procedures, or 
• to force women to carry even stillborn children to term after 20 weeks, or 
• to legalize the murder of abortion providers, or 
• to redefine rape, or 
• to force doctors to lie to patients, or 
• to restrict access to birth control while criminalizing all abortion.

I’m angry that Bill Clinton is still the Democrat’s Golden Boy. I don’t care that he cheated on his wife—that is his personal business. But how many women have accused him of sexual harassment, like Paula Jones? Of sexual assault, like Kathleen Willey? Of rape, like Juanita Broaddrick? Accusations date back to BEFORE he was even governor. So all you rape apologists who want to doubt his victims’ credibility can just stop. I thought the Democratic Party supported women’s rights…

I'm angry that my twin brother called me a slut and a whore for years, in front of all our mutual friends, and not a single one of  them stood up for me. I had committed the unforgivable crime of developing breasts, and I had to be shamed for it.

I’m angry at the number of times I had to ask to choose a famous person not on the proposed list for essays, papers, and projects. Why? I wanted to write about famous women.

I’m angry that I earned a reputation in my non-WGS history classes as the feminist. Why? I was the only one who consistently questioned gender bias, who asked about the women. In today’s day and age, what kind of history students ignore the history of half the world’s population?

I’m angry that my home church won’t allow women to serve in ordained positions. Women are allowed to be deacons, but not elders or ministers. My father is an elder, and I know he does his best to represent my mother and me, along with my brothers. I remember how proud I was when I found out he had been nominated. I cried when he told me he almost didn't accept it. He had to pray about it and talk to my mother because he wondered if it was wrong to accept a leadership role denied to my mother.

I’m angry that women are held up to an impossible standard of beauty. Be skinny, but not too skinny. Be curvy, but not too curvy. Be really pale or really tan, but not in-between. Always wear make-up in public, but never look like you’re wearing make-up. Wear the latest styles, but only wear styles that flatter your figure. Wear the latest colors, but only wear colors that flatter your skin tone. 

I'm angry that a sexual double standard still exists. My blood boiled when I first heard the comparison of men and women to keys and locks. 

I'm angry that most movies and TV shows fail the Bechdel Test.

I'm angry that so many of the twitter accounts I follow do stupid trending topics like #MyPerfectHusbandIs and #HowToMakeAWomanHappy, both of which just reek with outdated gender stereotypes.

I'm angry that I can't tell anyone from home that I'm bisexual. I'm angry that my sexuality is dismissed as greedy, or experimental, or denial. I'm angry that I have to lie to my family, to all my friends from high school, to most of my friends from college, to everyone at church. I'm angry that I can't marry a woman in my home state.

So go ahead.

Call me an angry feminist.

You are 100 fucking percent correct.

Blogoversary: One Year of Anonymity

A year ago today, I composed my inaugural blog post, clad only in my favorite lingerie, with a fuzzy blanket wrapped around me. As I write my sixtieth post, I’m completely naked in bed, the same set of French lingerie somewhere on the floor from when the boyfriend removed it last night. I’m back in the same city where my blog was born, but instead of being a few weeks away from the end of my internship, I’m starting the next chapter of my life. Moving here is my last big move, until either the boyfriend & I get married (fingers crossed!) or until I move back to France to recover from my heartbreak (not bad for a contingency plan, right?).

It’s been a good year for Confessions of a Virgin.

I wrote a guest post for Therese at How to Lose Your Virginity… and then the boyfriend & I ended up doing an interview for her documentary.

I wrote an article under my own name at Curvy Girl Guide after having connected with Meredith on twitter as @belle_vierge.

I’ve made some blogger friends, like Lauren at Our Crazy Ever After and Ashley at Chickadette. I’ve made some twitter friends, like my #bookends, @MrsJGatsby and @theycallmeivy. I’ve even made some twitter/blog crossover friends, like @Classy_in_KC

I joined Twithouse, a twitter organization of ambitious co-ed and post-grad women.  Even after the recent scandal, I’m still proud to be a member, and I still love the other women in the group.

I’ve received comments, emails, and DMs from virgins who relate to my posts. I’ve received comments, emails, and DMs from non-virgins who have admitted my blog has changed their perspective on virgins and virginity.

My pseudo-anonymous identity has given me the freedom to be raw and honest. To admit I’m a sexual being, even if I’m not engaging in coitus. To share my thoughts on sex and virginity. To write without fear of judgment. To open up about my sexual assaults. To advocate for women’s rights.

Writing a (mostly) anonymous blog has resulted in some of the most personal writing I’ve ever done. It’s so much realer than any of my previous work.

And yet it has only been a half-truth, at best.