My Apologies

I feel like I need to write a post in order to mend some hurt feelings that have been caused. In a couple of my posts I have made reference to people in the life of my family members who are struggling with the very issues that I talk about in this blog. I did so not realizing how viral the internet really is, and to be honest I did not take the time to sit and think about how I would feel if I were in that person's shoes and saw a post that was placing a judgment on my behaviours.

For this, I am sorry. I realize that there are always two sides to a coin, and unfortunately I only know my side. If I have hurt any feelings in what I have wrote, I am sorry. I hope that you will forgive me knowing that I had no intention to hurt.

After thinking about this, I think I will go back to how I originally started blogging. I am going to tell my story and my story only. I have tried to do that, but unfortunately unless I lock myself in my bedroom for the rest of my life, my story will always be integrated with the story of others. I know this makes things complicated, but I will do my best to keep this blog about me. My struggles.

That being said, I am sitting here on my bed, 9 days til I get married. I have a pile of snotty tissues next to me, my eyes are burning and I keep having to kill ugly spiders. I hope and pray that I will not be so sick by the time we leave for San Diego and that all the spiders in this worlds will die.

 I am still in the fight and I always will be even though I may not always know the best way to go about it. The reality and the overarching theme of this blog is that many of our perceptions of what is beautiful and desirable is MESSED up.

I have vivid memories of staring at pictures in magazines wondering why I did not look like they did. I would grab a measuring tape and measure myself and do the exercises that the magazines promised would make you look the way the model did. I did the exercises religiously and after doing it for the suggested length of time, I still did not look like her and I was not sure why. I never will. I am not her. I am me. I want to teach my children about what makes them important. It is NOT what you look like.

I believe that it is important for women to be physically attractive for men, however I think the problem is when that standard to set too high. This is detrimental for women because we can become slaves to the fashion, beauty, health, and cosmetic surgery industries in order to keep men wanting us. It is detrimental for men because they begin to prefer virtual women over real ones and then either never get to experience the satisfaction of a real relationship or they either explicitly or implicitly encourage us to look more like the virtual woman. Please know that I DO NOT BLAME MEN for this. I see them as victims of these messed up perceptions. Furthermore, not ALL men are like this. In fact, I believe that most of them are not. Same thing goes for women. There are many wonderful women out there who are not obsessed with their appearance. I do not even blame television or magazines or hollywood. ALL of my blame goes towards our number one and only real opponent, Satan. The reality is that everyone on this earth should be on the same team. We should be helping each other instead of blaming each other for our problems. We are in a war between good and evil. I am for the good, but the problem is that sometimes I think we get confused about what is good or better yet, what is best. In my opinion, living life to groom yourself is not God's idea of a beautiful woman.

I love you Daddy!
Sherry