Soccer Mom: Unplugged

I've been a miniscule part of the blogging community for just over a month now but in spite of my limited experience, I have to say that I am absolutely loving the life of an online journalist.  My online journal, taken at face value, probably seems as contradictory and convoluted as its author.  People and their opinions are generally even more complex than the issues themselves.  And yet, with few exceptions, my experiences online have been enlightening and engaging.  I've learned a lot, met some very interesting people and, in the process, come to know myself better.

Some of the blogs I've seen are filled with answers, others with questions, but all with opinions.  Opinions about weather and sports, music and art, Washington and Hollywood.  Just about every subject under the sun.  Some are intensely personal and others are guardedly anonymous.

The anonymity of online journaling is, in my opinion, one of the greatest benefits.  It offers a chance to be known for what you think without who you are muddying the waters.  You can be a voice of morality, a political pundit, a cultural whiz, a poet, a pervert, or like me, a person who just likes to hash things out with the wonderful sounding board of strangers unencumbered by the distraction of actually knowing me.

After some mental debate, I broke my silence and sent my blog's link to my family.  Probably a mistake.  As the fifth of six children, I have had an audience watching me succeed and fail all my life and in my family, filled with fiercely competitive souls, and zealous critics,  I knew I'd be opening myself up to rejection.  It didn't take long for judgements to be handed down.  But, that was to be expected.  My siblings have heard my opinions A LOT.  With six kids in a family, it's easy to get lost in the crowd.  I've always been the one who's spoken out with reckless abandon and usually without the tact that a Backspace button affords me.  And I have played the family Simon Cowell enough to warrant my own special judge's chair, so I don't deserve any mercy.  The sad part is that I really have grown into a mature adult, a good mother and an intelligent, strong woman.  Nevertheless, it seems unreasonably hard to shake those familial roles whenever we are together.  Know-it-all, tag-along, chatty, little sister.  And ever begging for approval from the siblings, I admire.  That's me.

There are days, days like today, when I struggle with self-doubt and wonder if I am destined to walk the same path as those who have gone before me.  I feel their dismissive gazes upon me and recognize the condescending looks that reduce my opinions, values, and struggles to the growing pains of a kid sister who will someday reach their level of maturity and understanding. 

I've thought a lot about the family dynamics today and decided that I was not alone in my circumstance.  There is another lady I know of, whose past as a young know-it-all haunts her.  Like me, she is a crusader who holds to ideals that are rarely practically attainable.  Regardless, she keeps advocating principles that even she finds hard to live up to.  Convinced that the world holds promise and she can help others see the glory in it,  she is a frequently outspoken.  She's made mistakes, visible to all, and those from whom she's descended are quick to point out her flaws.  But she gets it right, too.  A lot more right than she's given credit for, and she has friends, most of them unemcumbered by knowledge of her past failures who flock to her and find in her a rare beauty.  My lady friend,  America,  still bound to the Western European family that judges her harshly and praises her all too rarely, keeps turning homeward as if that is where all answers lie.  And yet, this beautiful woman, for all her highly visible wrongs, is a startling success in her own right.  She is winsome woman and her gates are filled to overflowing with people, literally, dying to get in.  Despite her detractors, there are many fledgling young nations who look to her as a shinging example of liberty and the triumph of principled reason. 

Some days, like today, America struggles with self-doubt.  She wonders if the message she has embraced, the message of self-determination, freedom and inalienable rights endowed by a Creator, is a banner worth waving.  She struggles with the practical application of letting the Liberty Bell sound in all the world instead of just in Philadelphia.  When America stands at the crossroads, listening to the criticisms of her older, more cynical European family, she must not only look back at where she started, but how very far she has come.  She can follow the footsteps of Western European nations or she can continue onward, blazing a new and freer path.  With her critics outnumbering her allies, even within her own borders, America has a hard road ahead.  She'll have to decide whether or not she is going to go the way of the Old World or if she will maintain the passionate and fiery charge of her youth.

What anyone becomes is ultimately the sum of his heart and his head, the culmination of where his ideals and his actions coincide.  Do we follow the paths of others, do we cling to outdated roles that relegate us a position we've outgrown, or do we march to the beat of our own drummer?  America and I, we have some choices to make.