Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Be prepared to cry...I did....

First tears of sadness

then tears of joy..

posted by Petra @ 3:30 PM   3 Comments

3 Comments:

At 1:22 PM, May 01, 2008 , Blogger ORION said...

I enjoyed your comment about the post I wrote about my neighbor Ella - why is it us women started out as Ellas and then get turned into something else?
I think we all need our inner Ella...

 
At 2:49 PM, May 01, 2008 , Blogger Petra said...

Hi Orion:

Thanks for dropping in (hope to see you stopping by again). I don't know why we loose our inner Ella.. I've been doing a lot of thinking about that.. and I have my theories based on my own particular set of experiences.

See, I grew up in a house where everything was 'topsy-turvy'. That is, if you use the 'typical' western societal reference of the male being the do-er, the fixer, the problem solver, the action taker. As a result, from an early age, I was encourage to have my own thoughts, make my own decisions, to follow my own path and that nothing was impossible for me, just because I was of the female persuasion (and my sincere gratitude to BOTH my parents for that). But then I got exposed to the 'real' world'. And unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the 'real' world (male AND female) that are threatened by "Ellas" and who will do what it takes to make a person's inner Ella 'conform to the norm'. So the questions, in my mind, are why are people so threatened by the Ellas in this world, and what can we do to teach our daughters that being an Ella is OK (just like it is OK to NOT be an Ella)? And as an extension of that, what can we do to teach our sons that for a girl/woman to be an Ella is 'acceptable'? And that if our sons end up finding an Ella as their significant other, that it is NOT OK to 'expect' the woman to surpress/change that aspect of her? Or, worse, to 'force' (by constant criticism, snide comments, passive/aggressive behaviors, etc.,) the woman to bury her inner Ella, just to 'keep the peace'?

It's taking me a long time to find my Ella back after she had gotten so incredibly snowed under. And truly, if not for my childrens' challenges and the realization that nobody was going to do ANYTHING to help my two boys but ME, I don't think I would have had the courage to 'resurrect my Ella and set her loose on the situation'.

What I continue to struggle with, now that I am living an 'Ella life' again, is the effect on my personal relationships; many of the 'adult' men that were actively involved in my life just could not handle the 'change' (but as a bonus, I've met several since that are not only comfortable with my Ella side, but who actively encourage it).

 
At 3:44 PM, May 01, 2008 , Blogger Petra said...

Here's the link to the comment I wrote in response to reading about Ella on Michelle O'Neill's blog.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=24947639&postID=8393782872463498900

 

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