Romanticizing Reality

I know, I know. Just bear with me, okay? We've probably all heard the flack Bella (or really, Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series and creator of Bella's annoying character) has gotten for being an enabler in an abusive and/or controlling relationship, or for not being strong enough. For being too dependent on her man-vampire. I love the empowerment women are finally getting in our culture and society--right now is the best time in history to be a woman, and hopefully that only continues. It is due to this wonderful influence (and the tuning out of negative influences) I have come to know my own strength as a woman, as well as my own worth. That my feminism is strength. But is it really so pathetic for Bella to be completely crushed when Edward leaves her in New Moon (the second book in the Twilight series, for anyone living under a rock)? I read the Twilight series as the books were first released--before it was cool. I was a Twilight hipster.  They were e

Over the past few years or more, I've had a refreshing view on pain. Something shifted, and now it seems for me that a common theme emerges when dealing with pain of any kind: embrace it. Or, as my natural labor childbirth book put it, "Become one with the pain." It may sound all new age or like a bunch of bologna, but I've learned that statement couldn't be more true. Whether it's becoming one with the pain in your body, in order for you and the pain to work together at healing or giving birth to a child, or becoming one with the sorrow of rejection that we, as writers, face almost daily, it is the same. Yes, I compared a writer's rejection to childbirth, because...well, duh. As a culture--and correct me if I'm wrong, but especially for men--we are taught and conditioned to tough things out. Shove away the pain. Fight it. Deny it exists, even. We see it all the time, in parents who scold their children for crying, who tell them to "