Past Tense, Present Progressive

Sierra from The Phoenix and the Olive Branch has just started a very interesting series about sexuality, structured around survey questions of participants who were influenced in some way by fundamentalism or Christian Patriarchy.  It's very encouraging to see that people who grew up with the strictest beliefs about sexuality are capable of becoming more accepting and open-minded as adults.  I was very happy to be able to participate in the series; I hope you'll read it along with me and add your voice to the conversation! Sexuality Project: Sierra's Introduction to the Project Sexuality Project: The Participants' Introductions Sex Education and the Body, Q. 1 --feelings and attitudes toward your own body Sex Education and the Body, Q. 2 --dealing with puberty Sex Education and the Body, Q. 3, 4, 5 --sex education received from family, church, and reading Sex Education and the Body, Q. 6 --first time hear...

I was not the type of daughter that my mother wanted.  I was a tomboy. My hair was very short and I preferred blue clothes.  I wanted to run faster and climb higher than anyone.  I wasn't afraid of slimy frogs and worms, and I could kill a spider without batting an eye.  I looked with confusion and disdain at the passive little girls with their hair-bows, sitting and talking about clothes and boys.  If I had known the term "badass" back then, I would have applied it to myself with pride. When I was young, my mom was more tolerant of this.  After all, in the early days, there were mostly boys in my age group in our small homeschooling community.  So I was free to run wild with the boys and join their sports games during our weekly park days. However, puberty was looming, and it signaled the end of my adventurous life.  It was time for me to learn to act like a "lady", and the means of teaching was through one sentence: "That's not very l...