But I Still Think So

            My Mom has married twice, the second of the two occurring only a summer or two ago. My sister and I changed quite a bit. Our stepsister and stepbrother have brought into our formerly three-person household the trends from every aspect of modern American culture and behavior. You’ve got your rap, your rock ‘n roll, your swear words and dirty jokes, and basically anything else that you’d like to put in a PG-13 movie (those I generally do not care to watch).

            My sister Sarah bent like wax and let the two new siblings in our family mold her and shape her into someone she never was before. For the most of our childhood, our single mother brought us up and taught us love, Christianity, trust in the ones you love, and most things of that type. I’ve got to say most of the things she taught us gave us the capability to glow inside the classroom – we were the kind of students that keep the tired, worn out teachers still going. Now, Sarah doesn’t seem to have lost that particular trait, but she underwent a drastic change from The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, and all those other enchanting movies to the products of raging teenage hormones that love to entice themselves with lust, body abuse, and the destruction of other people – PG-13. She wears the jeans, speaks the language, and follows the crowd of 2000-generation teens today. She implores me to do the same, but I have not yielded.

            I already am aware that once you readers read this, you’ll think, “This girl needs to get a life.” Guess what: I have a life, and a wonderful one at that. My eyes have not yet become so tainted with unhealthy pornographic images, neither has my mouth swallowed poison by spitting out the f-word. Neither rap nor rock ‘n roll is my style; the lyrics cross the line between “okay, that wasn’t too bad” to “why don’t they make a law that prohibits these song lyrics!?” (Personally I prefer choral, classical, Christian, and at times a little bit of pop. I don’t like it loud, either; I’ve only got two ears and I’d like to take care of them, thanks.) Perhaps a part of this was because I only had my first menstrual cycle a week or so before my fifteenth birthday, but I’m not one bit intent on finding out what sex feels like, unlike someone else I know somewhat. Certainly I’m a bit curious, but those are the kind of things I talk to Mom about when we go run or walk together. (Hey, it’s a lot better to ask than to find out and wind up with a scar on your heart and HIV wiping out your immune system.) As far as having a life is concerned, this should suffice: I have straight A’s, I’m in love (though boyfriends are still a thing of the future), I get a quarterly dose of limelight at the concert hall, and I take joy in playing piano, singing, talking to my Mom, running, composing music, writing of course, and talking to God.

            Now here’s where I’m connecting me, changed enough to matter, to Sarah, changed quite drastically: I already mentioned that she wants me to change with her. I’ve flatly refused. And I’ll give you the hard and ugly truth, because I don’t care what you think: I don’t shave my legs. If you’re wondering why, any girl who does pay special attention to keep their legs smooth and hairless knows that it must be a regular commitment to keep that hair from growing again. It’s a pain in the neck! Why bother? Not only that, but why bother to shave your legs when you wear jeans all the time? (Actually I don’t wear jeans; I wear skirts of several lengths, mainly long, accompanied by knee-highs or tights.) And to bring my sister back into the picture, her opinion is that I should. “Good hygiene” is how she defines it. Baloney! People can be perfectly squeaky clean without having to shave their legs! The men do it all the time, right? (I’m not counting the bicyclists who want to broadcast their “beautiful” muscles to the girls.) She seems to think it’s ladylike, and that even if I wear stockings while I’m out and about, I won’t be wearing stockings on my wedding night.

            News flash: would I marry someone that didn’t know I didn’t shave my legs? Sorry, I don’t think so. My opinion about marriage is that two fiancées should be best friends, essentially; they should have absolutely no secrets whatsoever, not even the tiniest one, and nearly the only thing they can think about is what they can do for their loved one that day.

            That’s beside the point.

            Of course, that’s only one of the opinions she’s picked up from everyone else. She’s also begun the makeup process, which, I suppose, isn’t that bad (I won’t be found with makeup on, though), and she’s even told me of some of her sexual desires which I will not publish here because it’s a personal issue. Her thirteenth birthday request was an unusual one: she’d asked me to make a regular commitment to get rid of the hair between my eyebrows, shave my legs, wear lip-gloss or chap stick of some kind, and/or get rid of the hair above my lips (actually, I have been meaning to do that). Essentially, she asked me to waste my precious time with something that doesn’t even matter. One should have to be very fragile inside and afraid to be accepted for what’s underneath the surface to commit themselves to continually broadcast messages of “Look at me! I’m worth something! I look good! You don’t need to dig any deeper than the surface, it’s all right here on the surface!”  

            Sarah, poor creature that she is, yielded with no resistance to the trends of this generation, a drastic contrast to the world she was brought up in. (I think I tucked my head and rolled back into the world in which I was raised as tightly as I could.) The question, of course, remains: why? Why would a person give in so easily to the pressures around them?

            I have only a theory: some people don’t exactly know who they are. Personally, I could write a 400-page book about myself, and there would still be things I left out. I know a lot, but of course I don’t know everything. I’ll learn as the school of hard knocks teaches me more of its lessons and I react to them. Sarah, however…well, I’m not really sure how much she could write about herself. I’ve never exactly asked her. Indeed she might know quite a great deal about herself, but perhaps she’s still searching. She seems to be still trying to develop herself by submerging herself down into the depths of today’s PG-13 rated teenagers. The sad fact is that a lot of today’s society is deep-fried in sin – depression, substance abuse, violence, conformity, fear of standing and staying within the limits of morality, lest one be forced to bid their social life goodbye. Well, ladies and gentlemen, everyone has a complex operating system that determines the way we humans go about our lives, and every single person has their own system. It’s called personality. I strongly believe that in order to work the system effectively and go through life with more confidence, it’s exceedingly important to know how your own system works.

            My message to you, readers out there: find out who you are. Don’t adopt styles and beliefs that aren’t in your heart. Find out who you are, and be who you are, and don’t ever let people change you.