Paradigms

I first came across the word paradigm while sitting in a college Honors Child Development class.  The teacher opened the class by placing the word alone on a clear overhead sheet and projecting it largely on the wall.  That day's lecture made a real impression upon me.  It was such a powerful lesson that day that I even left a little shook up.   I continue to have my paradigms shaken.

A paradigm, as I'll use it, is a basic assumption we hold to be true and through which we base our understandings of, and interactions within, the world.  It is the colored glasses through which we view life itself and our own purpose for existence.    In general, I'd say most of us go through life subconsciously seeking out things, ideas, and people that validate our paradigms.  It's when we allow ourselves to reevaluate the "truth" of a deeply rooted paradigm, that we really mentally and emotionally extend ourselves and grow in understanding of the world and our place in it.

A paradigm might be whether you accept evolution or creationism, or to what degree you believe in and incorporate either.  Every article, every conversation, every thing in nature you observe, your choice of religion, your view of self, is all going to support your paradigm, otherwise, you will dismiss it, or you may argue with it, unless the contradictory information is loud enough to make you reconsider your assumption and change it.

Changing a paradigm is not easily done.  You have to realize you've been walking that path for quite awhile, consider why you chose that path to begin with - whether you chose it or were led there by parents, peers, or clergy - and recognize that the fork in the path is quite a hike back.   

My paradigm of self was that I was cursed as a woman.  I was less because I was woman.  No body came out and told me this but I knew it was true.  All my life I was to look forward to being a woman, to menstruating and having children, to marrying and having an intimate relation with a man.  That was my purpose.  And I did want children, and I did want to be a wife and mother, but my wants constantly fought with my paradigm and my paradigm would win, time and again.

Time went, and if life was good my image of self was good, but when it got hard - usually in relation to being a mother or wife - I would naturally fall back on my original idea of the cursed woman: cursed because I bled, monthly; cursed because I bore and labored in pain for children; cursed because I was expected to meet my husband's needs; cursed, because of Eve.

One summer, I scheduled a long vacation with my kids.  I scheduled the vacation for two reasons: one to visit far away family, and, two, to get an intimate break from Dru.  That same spring, the women of my family had a short get-together and I came away overwhelmed with the feeling that I needed to let Dru know I loved him.  I'd ask him what three things I could do for him and then choose one that I felt like I could do.  I figured I'd have him give me three choices because I was afraid that if I only asked for one, that one thing would be too hard for me to do and would break me.  When I asked him, he just turned to me and said, "I can only think of one thing.  I love to be hugged.  April, will you hug me for just a bit when I get home from work?"  It was that simple.  And I could do that.  But that fear of not being able to have done more for him if he'd asked left me unsettled.  I went ahead and asked my sister to send me book about improving one's marriage.  I knew when it came in the mail, knew when I held it in my hands, that my paradigm was about to be rocked.  And it was.

The following weeks were filled with tears and prayer and study and more tears and much downloading in my journal.  Some nights I would sit awake in bed and stare out the window wondering how it was I'd gotten to where I was and whether or not it was where I really wanted to be.

On one occasion I found myself reading a poetry book written by my grandma and grandpa.  Oh, how their love for each other just emanated from the pages.  He cherishes her and thinks the world of her and I wanted that in my marriage.  Not that Dru didn't cherish me or think the world of me but I wanted, needed, to believe I was good enough to be cherished like that. 

But I felt ugly.

I was woman.

Five children later, one pregnancy seeing me stretched to abnormal proportions with twins, and I had widened fat hips and unsculpted calves.  My belly was a large third breast that fell in folds around my outty belly-button.  My breasts were small and listless.  And once, twice, a month I bled for 5-6 days.  I did not feel attractive in or out of the marriage bed.  I, was cursed if ever any woman was cursed.

Then one night, I took a walk with Eve.  When you walk with Eve, you discover that you are powerful and beautiful and worth being loved.   For me, that meant examining my body and realizing that my calves and thighs were strong, my belly had held life and had the potential to hold life.  My breasts were capable of sustaining life and were attractive to the hand that caressed them and the nipples responded in kind to that touch.  My neck nobly held my head and my lips felt, moved, kissed.  Every part of me was worth being loved, by me.  I was not a curse nor did I carry with me any curse.  I was capable of joy because I knew pain.  I was human.  I was woman. 

The book my sister sent, helped me pin down what my paradigm was and how I'd gotten there, but it was my reading of Eve - this first woman of women, the one "cursed" and who brought life upon all women - that really reached my core.  And the more I read, the more my image of her began to change.  And as it changed, the image I had of myself has begun to change as well.

That's why I wanted to write: to challenge the world's negative paradigms about Eve or the ones we, as women, have for ourselves.  I want to let you know how worth love you are.  How knowing that, empowers us as women.  How we are all heroine's of the best novel of all - life.  How we can walk with Eve and find joy.

And of the summer vacation?  I still went and enjoyed my time with family immensely, but I missed him dearly and, in the end, I begged Dru to come out early and we went to a hotel, and loved each other.  =)