I haven’t written in a while, like written on my own time. My thoughts. Reflections. Life. Anything. It’s like I’ve become complacent with my own steady struggle to wake up, get through the day, then sleep (if that even happens). The struggle of a college senior, right? Or is it just me?
I recently wrote a paper, however, for a class I’m taking on Zombies, Identity, and Rhetoric and this is what I wrote to conclude my progress as a Christian student in a discussion of “figured worlds” :
Where am I Now?
While I could not write about the totality of the life changing experiences I had in college, like my trip to California in an inter group dialogue class that challenged my view on Christian dominance and hegemony in America, I can see that I’m not the same conservative, shy, quiet, passive, submissive girl I was coming into college. I gained my voice and I started to do what I wanted to. I started wearing nail polish just because I liked it, I’m wearing lipstick because I want to, and I wear bracelets and necklaces and not because I particularly want to be rebellious and obnoxious to my original religious views, but simply because I can. Identity is something I create, and although I still wear skirts because I feel most comfortable in them, I was and still am able to compromise what I was taught before and what I’m learning now to create a new me that is not afraid to stand up for my womanhood or my spiritual beliefs. I am because I say I am and no one can make me feel guilty about who I am or who I choose to be. One important lesson I’ve learned at Syracuse, especially through writing, is you can bandage up your own identity wombs that made you feel uncomfortable before. You can create and re-create and re-create again who you are until you are 100% sure that this is who you want to be. The only person in charge of you is you and whatever ideology you want to live your life by, whether it’s institutional religion, simple meditation, yoga, being “spiritual,” then it’s all up to you. I no longer want to be religious in the sense that it will dominate my life in ways that makes me feel that I’m not and can’t be in control of myself and my decisions, but go by my own ideological views that represent who I have become as a compilation of who I was and who I am now. I declare my womanhood my own, my belief in God as my own, and my identity mines to build. My figured world is both complex and diverse just as my identity is a combination of all the aspects that is purely me.
Reading it over and over again I laugh at how bold I’ve become. I’m not longer afraid to mold my identity on who I’m becoming and declaring my own voice and independence daily. Although I find myself in a panic often because I’m challenging what I’ve been taught to accept as true and authentic, I learned that it’s okay to be who you want to be and decide for yourself whether something is “right” or “wrong.” The development of morality and moral decision making cannot be someone else’s progress made for you but one you have to judge for yourself. Now that much of us, those 90’s babes, are becoming adults, its important to be mindful and active in how we see our own self-development, morality, spirituality, and ideological views. We as a generation have a powerful role in the progression of this country. Working on ourselves, becoming knowledgeable, and constantly understanding and opening our own perspectives is pivotal.
Although I’m in a state of transition and at times uncomfortable, frustrated, and anxious about my change in ideological and spiritual perspectives, I’ve learned so much about who I am and who I want to be. Finding worth and purpose in myself has been the hardest most draining most trying thing I’ve ever had to do, but I know it’ll be most rewarding in the end.
I just have to keep progressing and stop hindering my own breakthrough.
SparklyWarTanks 