Friday, December 21, 2007

where the flashback fridays are

I bet that Mad is the only one who's wondering where the feminist flashback fridays have gone. I always said I would only write them until I ran out of stories, but the truth is I haven't run out of stories. I've just run out of easy stories. On top of that, I've begun to question my motives for telling the other stories I'd like to and reconsidering the boundary between privacy and silence. And there's the matter of my sister enjoying my blog, which is great but I felt a bit weird when she said she'd been reading about my love life and been impressed by how engaging it was. I worry people (like my sister) will think I'm weird for telling some stories.

On the one hand I'm not sure I'd want Swee'pea to read some of these stories when he's older but on the other, I want it documented that I was once young and stupid and invincible-feeling too. I'm worried I'll be one of those parents who completely forgets what it was like to be young. And my memories are still so vivid right now. I realized at that fancy Christmas dinner I went to, when the parents around the table talked about their kids (between 5 and 10 years old), I always had my own anecdote to relate from the kid's perspective. I felt weird when I realized this, but perhaps that just means I have a lot of stories to tell.

On a third hand, I continue to have this niggling feeling that by NOT writing such stories, I am helping to perpetuate the madonna-whore thing. And finally, I don't like that when I die, these experiences will die too.

My choices and relatively brief promiscuity were deliberate and political as well as a journey. In high school I was a nerd and a late bloomer, respected only for my intellect. In my last year and through university, I'd had enough of being admired or desired for my brain and wanted to be admired for my body. Once I conqured that frontier, an impressive feat as an aggressive Amazon, I settled into confidence in my brain and my body, just as they were. Now I do some of the admiring myself, although mostly it's just acceptance.

So I'm going to write them, but I probably won't publish them.

6 comments:

Mimi said...

Fair enough. This is a very thoughtful working out of the issues: and, for the record, I missed the feminist flashback Fridays, too.

And: you have three hands????

moplans said...

HaHa! You tease.
Never publish them? Or not here?

Maddy said...

My Amazon days are long gone, there again, if I had three hands like you, I'd be well ahead of the curve.
Best wishes

This is my calling card or link"Whittereronautism"which takes you straight to my new blog.

Run ANC said...

I liked the Feminist Flashbacks too. Such brave writing.

Mad said...

I must admit that I have missed them but then my hot flash Fridays dried up too.

You know, you could always write your stories and send them to someone or a few someones just so you'd know you spoke them aloud. I would always listen without judgment.

Anonymous said...

You're such a tease.

But I respect the decision.