Why am I hiding?

Get ready, because if you're not expecting me to be really really real right now, you might want to look at my G rated facebook wall. Because it's about to get rill up in here.

I went and got Johnny's Pizza with a friend today (might I add that this is the best crack-riddled pizza that you could ever feast upon), and I got to talking with her about social networking.

I told her how I've been wanting to be more anonymous on the internet. Everything I do is connected to facebook, and everyone I know is ON facebook. That means: my parents, the Chavo, people from Guatemala that know me as somewhat of a missionary (or not), people from my church, past teachers from high school, parents' friends, etc etc. I love all these people a lot. I really do. I would never even consider "unfriending" them because they're really cool.

But let's get real: I can't be totally honest with them. I can't be in a conversation with them and say "You know what just pisses me off?" or say anything that can be even remotely PG-13. The only person that I even feel the slightest bit safe cursing in front of is my mom (oddly enough). My mom and I are super close, and she knows that when I get angry, I'm not just going to pretend that everything is sunshine and rainbows and pretty daisys that smell like chocolate cake.

Chavo doesn't even like it when I get ummm "R-rated mad". I've only gotten R-rated mad while on the phone with him twice... EVER. One time was 2 nights ago when I was so angry that I was literally laying on my bedroom floor, sobbing like an idiot, a cursing the existence of one of my professors (don't ask). And I even finished my "upset" by apologizing and blubbering like an idiot.

But anyways, I was telling my friend, over delicious pizza, that I want to be more anonymous so I can say things that I truly feel. And not even negative things either, just things! Like, how I really want to be able to talk to someone about someone that's gay and not have to say "Yeah, they're gay, but they're really cool." Or talk about my sociology class (Gender and Violence, its crazy awesome) without worrying that they're going to get mad that I just said the word "vagina" out loud and it reached their happy, clean ears. Come on y'all. Its a word for a body part that half of the world has, its not a bad word...

So, here's the deal, I don't want to be more anonymous. I want people to KNOW my true feelings on things. I want people to know that I don't think the world is black and white, that people are good or bad, stupid or smart, but that God made you beautiful exactly how you are. I want people to know that I get crazy offended and angry when people say "I think that if you come to America, you have to speak english," like that girl at the nail salon yesterday. I want people to know, especially in my hometown, that while I consider myself a "moderate conservative", sometimes I have liberal thoughts and that does not make me a devil-worshipping, absinthe-drinking, not-leg-shaving crazy person! I want people to know that "liberal" and "conservative" are not synonyms or antonyms for "right" and "wrong" or "bad" and "good".

I am a person! I am Ginger Spice-Valerie Wade and I am a human being with thoughts and feelings. And even if they are different from yours sometimes, we are both still human beings and we should expect to be treated as such. I will NOT be anonymous. I will be tactful and know that some things should be left unsaid (like telling the girl at the nail salon that I want to choke her), but that does not mean that I am going to be silent and pretend that everything in the world is perfect. If this world were perfect, we wouldn't need Jesus. If this world were perfect, Jesus wouldn't have even come once, much less come again. But Jesus made me, just like he made you, fellow human. Jesus went to the cripples, the whores, the blind, the sick, the needing, the seeking, the children, the thieves, the tax-collectors, people that are just as much God's creations as anyone else.

Stop demonizing people that disagree with you and start treating everybody like they are human beings that are just as much God's creation as you! Just because someone or something doesn't fit inside a nice, neat, little box doesn't mean they aren't worth listening to or loving. Then maybe people wouldn't be scared to speak up and be honest with people. I don't want to live in fear that someone is going to find out who I really am. I don't want people to think I am unloveable because I struggle with food, or doubt, or lust, or anything else that is a real, honest-to-God, problem.

This post got a lot more real than I even planned for it, but I feel better knowing some of the things I said. Because it's the truth, and I don't want to put up some sort of fake, flowery persona of someone that I don't want to be. I am real, raw woman, and I refuse to hide behind sparkly Christmas tinsel and some fake blog because I want this world's love more than God's.

This is real.

Its NOT the same.

Depending on when you met me in the course of my life, I can be one of two things for you:

1) If you met me when I was in high school, I can be the high-stress, sarcastic, crazy b.... witch. I'm still amazed that I had friends in high school. It really is a miracle. But now that I look on high school, many of my friends (certainly not all) were just as high-stress, sarcastic and dramatic as I was... is... am.

2) I can be the happy-go-lucky, scarf knitting, blog writing, Guatemala-going, get-married-really-young, freak.

But I noticed something about myself. I'm sure if you've been on my blog for longer than half a second, you realize that I am a Christian. And yes, I'm from the Bible Belt, but my school pretty secular. My friends consist of those inside my campus ministry, and then friends from the outside that are mostly non-Christian.

Anywhoodles, enough of the background, time for the good stuff. The time where I get on my soapbox and tell you something that takes some of my dirty laundry and airs it out for the whole wide world to see.

I was talking to one of my non-Christian friends (I refuse to say "unbeliever" because that sounds cultish and the first thing I think of when I say it is "shun the nonbeliever!!") about one of my other non-Christian friends. Something I like to call "conversing by proxy" while the bible calls it "gossip". But anyway, I was talking to my friend about this other friend and how mad I was that this person was doing something stupid. My friend's response was "You know, [Ginger Spice]? Sometimes people don't want to feel like they have to live their lives a certain way. This person wants to do what she wants and she doesn't want anyone else to give her flack about it."

Now, this is true. I know it is. Seeing this typed out seems pretty innocuous, but his tone is what got me. He wasn't telling me something I knew. He was telling me something that I didn't know. He acted like he was explaining the ground to someone that didn't believe in gravity.

Just because I believe in Jesus doesn't mean I don't know how this world really is. Just because I believe in Jesus doesn't mean I cannot relate or understand someone who doesn't. Believing in Jesus isn't like believing that gravity exists, or that the world is round.

The world is UGLY. It is one ugly ugly place. People do stupid crap. Because they can! Jesus isn't like gravity! You can't choose against gravity. If you jump off a bridge and turn off the gravity like you can turn off a Christian moral center. I could just as easily go off, find some drugs, sleep around, and end up in jail as someone else. Because I have a choice. I am not a perfect person. No one is perfect. Just because I am a Christian doesn't mean I can't do something stupid. It means I have a means by which to repent and ask for forgiveness. So don't talk to me like I am in an alternate reality just because I don't agree with something that you say.

Gravity keeps me on the ground. The world is round. And Jesus is very very real.