Captivating

I am currently reading the book Captivating. I had heard of it before, but never really wanted to read it. I figured I would just be annoyed and disagree with a lot of it. I havent finished it yet and honestly, it hasnt said anything that I have not heard before or done anything to change my life, but as I have been reading it, it has made me examine some areas of my life that I would much rather keep on neglecting and pretend dont exist.
The first issue is what it means to be feminine. I dont know when I started rejecting femininity in my life, but I know it happened somewhere. There are things about me that are different than other girls. I dont like jewelry, I am not giggly, I burp and fart without much dicernment, I pride myself on packing extremely light for trips, showers and makeup are optional and sometimes I talk sort of dirty.
Last fall I read a book that talked about women needing to guard their feminine mystique, and that really made me stop and think about some of the ways I act and maybe why I am the way I am. I remember being little and always being told I was just like my dad. I looked like him and had his personality. I have all sisters and being the middle child, something has to be different so I think I took on the role of the son in a lot of ways. The only redeeming factor for me was the fact that I pretty much suck at being competitive and my younger sister took over in that arenea.
I am not sure why I took so much pride in being different and not girly, but it really did define me for a long time, at the same time however, I still wanted to be beautiful. I always wanted people to like me. And maybe my goal was to know that I was being liked for my personality and my humor and not for superficial reasons. I think that is a good theory, but like all insecurities, it needs to be reevaluated once discovered.
So now I have to decide what is feminine about me without becming fake. I dont want to buy into an idea or societal pressures or even try to be what people expect. Somehow I have to figure out what it means to be feminine and beautiful without gettting a personality transplant or changing into something I am actually not. (Please dont take any of this to mean that I am feeling pressured into becoming something else. I am just begining to notice areas of my life that were created out of fear and compensation and I want to become confident in who I am rather than trying to prove myself or something like that)

The next thing that I started to examine as I read this book is my relationship with men. The book talks about the "man's role" in each of our lives and how we grow up needing to be told that we are beautiful, and that determines our relationships with men in the future. I believe a lot of what she says in the book because as a female I have learned, sometimes inconciously, the effects of men on my life. I have begun to notice how extremely and painfully awkward I can be around men. Part of that is my personality and just the fact that I am somewhat introverted and reserved and the fact that I didnt have brothers, but I think some of it has to do with men from my past. I really need to think through this more, but I just wanted to journal some of this and maybe as time goes on I can start to recognize changes in myself.

Like I said before, most of this is just what I started to think about as I have been reading this book and I am sure anyone who has read it took something much different from it and thats ok.

PS, I am so excited about the roadtrip. A week from right now we will be on day one....and in two weeks I will be worshiping in the same room as one of my favorite authors, if he is at church that day.