GrowingUp-ComingIn

Growing up, from the time I was about 5 years old, I had 2 mom's. My mom, and my step mom, were the main examples I had of what it meant to be a woman.  My step-mom was loud, boisterous, and masculine. She had short hair, a loud voice, and a taste for beer rivaled by nobody I've known since. She was kind hearted in many ways, in small moments, but cruel and abrasive in others. She didn't take shit from anyone.  My mom was also not the most traditionally feminine woman. She worked hard outside the home. She was not a great house keeper, at all, and while an excellent cook, she left most of the managing of the household amd cooking of meals to my step-mom. She was a great mom, she supported my dreams, mostly, and tried her best to encourage my eccentricities and passions. But I came into adulthood having images of women in the media, metal music stars, and my equally struggling friends as the examples on which I built my identity as a woman. I struggled a lot of come to terms...

 I always found it funny that Plato's "Apology", was actually a long and drawn out defense by Socrates of his own actions. There is a lot we can say about the Apology...but I'm going to leave my analogy at that observation... because what follows is my own "Apology" (read that as...defense). My most toxic and harmful trait is that I am defensive. This defensiveness manifests as an inability to admit to being wrong in the moment, and apologizing for myself instead of apologizing for others - and worse still, defending myself within my apologies. It comes up in the most stupid moments. Today, for example, my husband told me that I should avoid lemongrass in a specific recipe, because it smells like lemon. I said "does it smell like lemon?" He laughed... "LEMON grass" he tells me, and I, defensively say "I mean, I could mix it with something else, I don't think it smells that much like lemon, I'm just brianstorming"... (or ...

My name is Johanna and this blog is dedicated to the process of growing, changing, learning, and coming to terms with improtant truths. It is about admitting where I have been wrong. Growing Up, I think, speaks for itself. But Coming In refers to my experience of coming home to myself. Allowing my own conscience to guide my beliefs and values, rather than a crowd of comrades or co-conspirators.  A little about me: I am a mom, a wife, a grad school drop out, a floundering idealist, an increasingly skeptical "vegan". I'm 32, have a 5 year old daughter, and have been married for 6 years. Since getting married I have changed, a lot! And since having a child, I have changed even more! And what has changed may are my values, my beliefs, and my goals. When I met my husband I was a 24 year old, passionate vegan, on my way to grad school in Political Theory. I was a passionate feminist, an outspoken advocate for every under-represented voice I could find, a loud-mouthed, confident...