Christian Metaphors for Sex

Well, we're married. Beautiful day, ceremony in my grandmother's backyard, the right dress, the right people, lots of candles and twinkle lights. It was good. And I've been working. A real job For grown ups. I spent Kris' school year working as a temp at his university's library, 40 irregular hours a week, coworkers who could be my parents (if not grandparents), and hanging out with work study students.

But that ended in June and after the honeymoon, I started working as s Digital Marketing Specialist at the local library, which is delightful. I'm on Facebook and Twitter and I get paid for it. Downfall is that this is a temporary position too and I only get 25 hours/week, which is a huge cut. It's not a big deal right now because Kris is working this summer, but when he goes back to school, I foresee problems of the highest order.

Well, maybe not the highest. Because we're already facing some of those highest order issues. Like problems with our sex life. Which we've had for ages, but haven't consistently worked on. At least not until now. I went to a sex therapist for all of three weeks in May when we thought we could afford therapy, and she suggested that we go through Sex Smart by Aline Zoldbrod together as a couple. So I read it and he read it and then we (I) forgot about it for a while, but now we're working through one chapter a week and making progress. At least, I think we're making progress. Kris seems to consistently be of the opinion that our relationship is a giant mess and so full of problems that are (mostly) my fault that I can't even stand to work on them. And I can't let him think that, so here we are.

Anyway, Chapter 5 of Sex Smart brought up some interesting issues about my perception of sex. Namely, how being a brainwashed Christian has effected my perception of sex, my persona; sexuality, and our sex life. And our conversation led to a discussion of how Christianity's view of premarital sex (and sex in general) is overall very negative and. beyond that, deeply wrong. We talked about how I've been trained since I was eleven or twelve to view sex as a huge sin, my purity as something precious, and myself as a horrible, horrible person for having sexual thoughts and acting on them.

After all that, we got onto the subject of Christian metaphors for sex and how young Christians are trained to hate sex and why. I remembered one of my friends in middle school comparing a person;s sex  life to an Oreo that you'll give your spouse on your wedding night, and saying every time you have sex or do something sexual in nature, you take a bite out of that Oreo.  If you're not careful, she cautioned, you'll only give your spouse a handful of crumbs.

To shorten a very long story, Kris asked me to try to remember all the stupid metaphors for sex that Christians use. This is what I came up with:

1. Sex is like a sacred fire, unless it is contained (in the fireplace of marriage), it is dangerous and can sweep out of control in a heartbeat.

2. Sex is like a Tootsie Roll. You never known what's under the wrapper-could be an STD, a baby, the loss of your heart.

3. Your sexual appetite is like your physical appetite. Premarital sex is junk food and if you gorge yourself on junk food before dinner (your wedding night), the sight of real, nutritious food will make you sick.

4. Your body and your sex life cam either be Styrofoam cups (slutty clothes, slutty attitude, sleeping around and nobody cares),  coffee mugs (nice, but nothing special; can be used for sex and easily discarded), or fine china (very precious, handled with care, only used on special occasions, like a wedding night).

5. Your virginity is "a pearl of great price" and should only be given to the man who's willing  to give up everything (all other women) in order to obtain it.

6. Sex is like test driving a car. You want to be careful, go the speed limit, avoid getting it dirty. Premarital sex is like smearing mud all over it, breaking the windows, and poking holes into the upholstery.

7. Premarital sex  is  like inviting all your ex-girlfriends to come to your wedding. Like you're taking all your previous sexual partners with you to your marriage bed.

8. If you have sex before marriage, you are a cup of saliva. (Everyone in the room spits into a cup. Preacher/youth pastor holds it up and says that if you have premarital sex, you are as disgusting as this cup of saliva.)

9. Your sexuality is not your own. It belongs to your future husband. If you have premarital sex or sexual acts, you are stealing from your husband (and from the guy you're doing it with's wife).

10. Sex is a soul-tie. Your soul/heart is eternally bound to all the people you've had sex with.

11. Your virginity is a gift that sound be saved for your spouse.

12.  Your sexuality is like a piece of chewing gum and premarital sex is chewed gum.

13. Sex is like a rose. Premarital sex is like passing the rose around the room and having everyone pull off a petal.

14. Your sexuality is like duct tape and every time you press the tape onto someone's skin and pull it off, you take a little bit of them with you until your sexuality is no longer clean and sticky.

15. Premarital sex tells your future spouse that they weren't worth the wait.

16. Sex is a battle ground and only people who are virgins on their wedding day have won that battle.

17. Sex is a tissue and premarital sex is a used tissue.

That's all I can think of, for now. I'll add more if they come to me.

Second Best/Failing at Life

So here's the thing: I've been second best since I was in the fourth grade.

Maybe even before that, but I can remember it starting in the fourth grade. That was the year I went to a "real" school for the first time (even though it was a ridiculously small private Christian school where four grades were taught in one room). There were only five kids in my grade and only one other girl. And while we were destined to be best friends, we went to the same church and were the only girls in the grade, she was by far the smartest girl in the room (she later ended up going to Colorado School of Mines). She was our teacher's favorite student by a long shot. Her hand writing was perfect, she had an incredibly fast reading rate, she was in advanced math classes, she was a perfect speller, and she was incredibly athletic. Compared to me, who'd never written in cursive before that year, never been tested on reading, and who was an awful speller, mathematician, and athlete, she outshone me by 100,000 watts.

Which, I think, set the stage for the rest of my life. I did alright in middle school, but once I hit high school, I somehow found myself "best friends" with the smartest people I met. Freshman year, it was Alex Deary, the only freshman to be admitted into the Sophomore Honors English classes and who was the only sophomore ever to take Honors American Studies, a class reserved for Juniors. She also got the lead in every play and musical and all the solos in all our choir concerts. Our friendship didn't really make it past sophomore year because she advanced to the "varsity" choir and I remained JV, essentially demolishing our friendship.

After a stint of being friends with only my boyfriend during my sophomore year, I then became friends with Hannah, who was perfect at EVERYTHING. Speech and Debate, Honors English, Biology, Algebra II, the girl could do anything. Plus, she was way rich and the only child at home. A bit quirky, but in a loveable and sweet way that made teachers fall in love with her, particularly our incredible speech and debate coach, who I desperately wanted to love me best. When she moved away in the middle of junior year, it was like the Speech and Debate team had been dealt a wound that it wouldn't recover from for the rest of time.

I went to senior prom with the valedictorian, who, bless his heart, couldn't really carry on a conversation with me with confusing me horribly. My freshman year of college, I bonded with the seventeen year old high school student who had also taken enough college credits to be considered a sophomore in college when she graduated high school. Did I mention that she was also the super-cool/incredibly awesome favorite professor ever's favorite pupil? Not only favorite pupil, but "adopted" daughter. Yeah. When she left for "real" college at an Ivy League school, the English department's staff acted like they'd lost the only hope for the future.

Later, in college, I was constantly a step behind the two girls who graduated early AND gotten their Master's degrees in a year and a half (they're about three-four months older than me). And so it went.

Topping it off, however, is Kris. He's incredibly smart. Beyond incredibly smart, actually. He took the ACT when he was hung-over and got a perfect score. He took every advanced class available at our high school. He won first place in national D&D competitions. He graduated at 17 and went to Colorado School of Mines, where he got an A in the Chem class famous for flunking freshmen.  He constantly outshines his classmates at CSM in every assignment, every time. He has designed computer programs that have won awards and written FRA programs that have become the models for the nation. When he gets to talking about his studies/interests/projects, I'm lucky to understand every other word.  He is beyond amazingly intelligent.

And he's marrying me?

Right now, I'm feeling ridiculously unimpressive. Even though I graduated magna cum laude and had an amazing internship, I haven't been able to get a job. Not in three months. And Kris, who is wonderful, is chock full of ideas of how I could be better looking for a job, or working on improving myself, or exploring careers that would better suited for me than the ones I'm applying for or telling me what I could be doing at my internship to shine brighter, or how I could be working harder...And I can't help but feel like I'm pathetic.

And I really don't understand what he's doing with me.Not at all.

My Life Lately

This week in my world: I am sucking at my new lifestyle change. I don't know if I told you about the WomanCode diet, where you cycle-sync your foods and activities to match the different stages of your menstrual cycle and works with your endocrine system to get the maximum efficiency from your body, etc, etc. I do a lousy job of explaining it, but in case you're interested, you should check out this link to find out more.

It's a really awesome premise and I was (am?) really excited about it. Until I went to my parent's for 4th of July weekend and totally wrecked it. Hamburgers, chips, soda, brats, burritos, etc, etc, etc...holy freaking cow! I brought jogging clothes, but didn't go out once. It was too hot, it was raining, it was the 4th and I deserved a day off.

And it spiraled. Last week was a total mess. We're not doing so hot on money at the moment, what with me still on the hunt, and last week's grocery shopping took me down to $14 left in my bank account (because, you know, saving up 6 months worth of money in case of emergencies is not something you do in college). Which made me super depressed, which meant I ate relatively healthily, but barely made it out of my bed while Kris was in Canon working. 

So yeah...This week I'm trying to get back on track. Kris and I made a budget for how we'll try to spend his monthly paycheck and I've applied for jobs, not careers, in the area to help make ends meet while I try to find a career.

The last four days have been pretty good. We borrowed a dehydrator from his parents and tried making our own beef jerky and dried apple chips. I've been jogging/walking twice, though my right knee isn't liking the jogging so much. And we have a fridge that has enough healthy-ish food in it to last the week.

Maybe by this time next week I'll have a job and life won't be so stressful.  

Day Dreaming

I've started to think about the wedding again lately. It's weird, after we decided to postpone it, and especially after I got the wedding dress that I'm not going to wear, I haven't felt any excitement for the wedding at all. I don't know if it's because I'm jobless and we have no money, so my practical mind is clamping down on my imagination, but it's been the last thing on my mind. I started pinning wedding ideas on Pinterest months and months before Kris proposed, but I haven't looked at those boards in ages.

And now, all of a sudden, I've been taking notice of wedding stuff again. All I feel in regards to it is sheer and utter depression, because I don't see how we could possibly afford a wedding any time within the next year, but I'm looking. And day dreaming.

  And looking at boho chic weddings on Pinterest.

My god, I love the idea of a boho wedding. There's part of me that's such a little love child, who wants to wear a flower crown and a lacy, flowing gown (or flowing Grecian gown, holy cow!) and walk down the aisle bare foot to meet my barefoot husband-to-be who's only wearing rolled up khakis and a white button down shirt.

I want my guests to sit on borrowed carpets in the middle of a field and I want every woman who comes to my wedding to have a flower in her hair. I don't want a lot of guests.

 I want my bridesmaids to have long, flowing dresses in beautiful, pale colors. I want a magical tent for the reception (do you SEE that amazing lacy concoction down there?!). I want it to be strung with twinkle lights and every flat surface to have a candle on it. I want daisies and mismatched china and floating lanterns and Carnival glass.

I want my groom to play guitar for me and to have longish ruffled hair. I want simple, light appetizers and crisp, fruity wine. Or microbrewed beer! I want our favors to be little paper bags of seeds or succulents in teacups or homemade jars of jam.

It'll never happen, and I think I'm okay with that. But it sure is nice to daydream.  

Making Myself Marketable

The last month has been a pretty interesting mix of interviews, applications, and an existential crisis regarding how my skill set is most likely going to make me zombie chow in the event of a zombie-related apocalypse (in any other apocalypse, FYI, I'm just plain ol' dead).

I've also been working on making myself more marketable. For instance, I've been spending three days a week at the library as their social media marketing intern. When I haven't been applying for jobs or reading about the glories of Pinterest and Twitter marketing, I've been playing around with GIMP, an open source version of Photoshop. So far I've been editing some images of me to give to Kris so he can have sexy desktop pictures of me instead of some random half-naked girl.

Acceptable Wallpaper

Unacceptable Wallpaper

But today I ventured out of my comfort zone a little bit and made some typography attempts. I saw some cool posters with Seinfeld quotes selling for $30+ (check them out here) and decided that words on a background was something that I could probably do. I started playing around on GIMP and looking for cool free typefaces, which didn't happen this time. So, I stuck with my (old) GIMP-provide typeface and experimented.

Then I needed a quote and, because I'm kind of a lame-o, I've been working my way through Star Trek: Next Generation. Whilst watching, I heard this line and more or less fell in love with it. And I decided to make it: 

I then decided that the above image was a little blah, so I added a little graphic I found to the bottom to liven it up.

 I can't decide how I feel about the black background on the Star Trek emblem thing-y, but I'm leaving it for now. My next step would be to test out the FedEx printing poster-sized images for $5 idea that's been floating around Pinterest for a year.

There's a Wedding Dress in My Living Room...

The wedding got postponed about six months ago, approximately two months after I'd  half-bought a wedding dress I wasn't in love with (assume-ably to prove to myself that we were going to still get married in spite of the problems...).  I've been putting off finishing the payment and  picking it up since February, but if I didn't take care of it this week, the bridal boutique would get to keep it according to the contract I signed...

Why? Because we were going to get married on Saturday. And now we're not.

We decided to postpone the wedding for a lot of really, really good reasons and we put a lot of time and energy into the decision to postpone. I was happy, relieved, and re-energized when we decided to postpone, but now that the would-be-wedding-date is two days away...I don't know quite how I feel.

Part of my heart still wishes that there was wedding happening on Saturday. This is the part, I've just decided, that wishes our relationship was at a healthy enough place to be able to have wedding. It's definitely not, proving again that we made the right decision.

And I was certain of that when I went to pick the dress up today. Right up until the sales girl brought it out for me to see and I was reminded of how lovely it is (even if it's not my style at all). I caught myself thinking that I should just hang onto it in case we decided to run away to a beach somewhere and get married there (which would make that dress PERFECT)...And then I realized how dumb it was to think those things.

I got myself ice cream. I took an hour and half long bubble bath. I'm wearing my favorite clothes. I did my nails. I got a little facial in a bag and did that. I've listened to calming music, and then to my favorite Pandora station. Now I've written about it.

All that's left is for me to go downstairs and get the dress out of the box and take pictures and create an eBay account and a Tradesy account and who knows what other kinds of accounts and put an add in the paper and then try to sell the damn thing.

The thought terrifies me.

I'm so afraid that if I open that box, I'll want to put it on, and if I put it on...I don't know what I'll do.

Seeking Certifications

I've come to realize that however useful my English degree and Professional Writing minor might be, they aren't nearly as marketable as being Microsoft Word certified and Google certified.

The problem is, I just spent thousands of dollars on my education and these certifications  cost about $100+ a pop. This is awfully frustrating to me and I feel like I should be taking another semester of courses in order to be more marketable.

Well, that, and I'm beginning to realize more and more that the career I feel most comfortable with would have something to do with Library Science. Unfortunately, I came across this realization too late and the nearest ALA accredited university isn't accepting applications until next February. Which give me plenty of time to prepare my application materials, but makes it difficult for me to pursue a job in the meantime. I detest the idea of going back into food service or the like, but at the same time, perhaps I should until I am able to apply?

But even then, I need to be able to have a job whilst in a Master's program, don't I? Ideally, I'd love to be able to work in a library, but there are no positions available anywhere in my area. Not even in universities. The best option I've found so far is a Social Media internship for my county library system, which I have applied for, but not heard back from. I worry that if I even end up getting that position, it won't be paid since it's a city internship and I'll end up back in the position of looking for a position in the food industry.

Blerg.

Another option could be that I spend some time teaching myself some marketable skills and getting certified more effectively while working in the food service and then pursuing a career a couple months from now.  However, does that really solve my initial problem?