Depends… who’s asking?

I actually have personal beef with this question; I hate it, and it will never not make me cringe. Because (story time!) way back in tenth grade, my World History teacher made us answer this question for some accursed “getting to know each other” game on the first day of class (an introvert’s nightmare). And, trying to make sure everyone knew that I was edgy and dangerous and troubled and mysterious, do you know what my dumb ass wrote down for an answer?

“Problematic.” 🤦‍♀️

Not entirely untrue, lol, but, come on. As you can imagine, people just kind of frowned and scratched their heads and gave me a wide berth. Best believe that incident set the tone for my sophomore year of high school. Ugh, the cringe is painful.

But whatever. Honestly, that whole class was lame anyway. I’m pretty sure that the teacher, a very charming and youthful twentysomething ESE (my conflictor type, me being an ILI) was just there because he wanted to party with the cool and popular high schoolers; so, he wasn’t a big fan of mine. My only fond memory of that class was when my BFF and I collaborated on a presentation about the emporer Nero, recording a sock-puppet show full of our goofy ironic humor and random gags that left the whole class (and teacher) once again frowning and scratching their heads like wtf is wrong with those two, while we sat there crying with laughter. See, this time it was funny, because someone else was being weird with me.

But, I digress.

One word that describes me, now that I’m 36… it depends who’s asking. If you’re someone that I don’t know too well and want to stay on safe/neutral grounds with, I’d probably just smile and mumble some sheepish, guarded response like: “introspective,” “overthinking,” “boring,” or something like that — all of which are true of me but don’t really get to the heart of the truth.

But since it’s WordPress’s Daily Prompt that’s asking, and since this blog is my little space to be really honest with you, since I don’t know who you are — you could be anyone — and since probably no one will read this anyway, so what does it matter; I’ll try to give an answer that gets to the heart of the truth.

My best answer today: conflicted.

I feel like “conflicted” sums it up, what I essentially am and what it’s like to be me. And basically sums up what this blog is about. It’s the but in between two clauses, creating the tension that I live in. Like: I’m a homeschooling Traditional Catholic SAHM who wants to fit in with the other TradCath mommies, who are all so feminine and classy and well-mannered, but I’m also a tomboy with AVPD and a weird sense of humor and a fine arts degree. I’m married and love being a wife but, also, ain’t no freakin’ wifey. I want to be a writer, but my ideas are shit and I’m pretty sure no one will like them and am too afraid to try and find out. I am proud of my body for having four perfect children, but I also hate it because it’s a hideous meat-tank and I wish I could trade it in for a different model. I’m all for body positivity and fat women being free to be themselves, but I also believe the body positivity movement is sick and wrong and needs to be undone. I’m a closeted alt kid who loves blue hair and weird fashion but I also believe that modesty and conformity to societal norms are important, and I ain’t no woke liberal. I want to love and serve God but I’m still so entrenched in sin. I’m vegetarian/vegan but I also understand carnivores and why they do what they do. I love hip-hop & rap but I also believe that popular hip-hop culture is unhealthy and steeped in sin and we shouldn’t listen to it. I’m a conservative, but I kinda relate more to liberals most of the time. I’m this but I’m also that, and it creates conflict.

I can see things from both sides. Which way to be? Which side to lean towards, or, how to find a happy medium? About most things (not all things; the few things that I’m sure of, like Catholicism, provide an anchor, without which I’d surely just float off into the ether and never return), I’m conflicted.

And that’s why this blog exists, really. If any of this resonates with you, we should be friends. Like I was saying, it’s so much more fun being weird with someone else.