Be You

I've been waiting to write this all day, but just my luck as I was typing the beginning words, the workers at my hotel in Italy decided to mess with the wireless router. The end result was no wireless and everyone walking away shrugging their shoulders as I stared after them with a disbelieving "WTF?!" on the tip of my tongue. It's been 5 hours since then and I finally marched down to the front desk and waded through the language barrier to inquire exactly how long they planned to deprive their guests of internet. To this, three of them poked and prodded around until they had it working again, much to my satisfaction.


Yes, I'm in Italy--Milan to be exact, the most impersonal and uninspiring city Italy could possibly have. My boyfriend is doing a 3-month exchange program with his university in California and of course being the girlfriend I was the lucky guest who got to follow him. Some days I think of how privileged I've been to have this opportunity, and other days I can't help but wonder what was wrong with me when I agreed to drop everything and endure three months of this. It's not just all fun and games. While he's away at classes every day, I don't flit around town shopping and living the life. No, I agreed to come here while I finished studying for my board exams as Physical Therapist Assistant. The exam I should have taken, oh, months ago? But thanks to my procrastination, the school's lag in processing paperwork, and my enormous fear of this impending 4-hour hell session, I'm still plugging away at it. 


Add to that the fact that we're living here on strict budget. Actually I shouldn't even say that; we surpassed our budget a long time ago. We're now living on credit cards--his credit cards, seeing as I haven't had a job in about a year now and my funds are non-existent. Lack of money makes traveling around Europe (because yes, we just did that for 3 looong weeks during a lull in his class schedule) a little sub-par.


Thankfully I'd already seen nearly every city we stopped at, thanks to my year of teaching English in Poland with my sister in 2006. Now that was an interesting experience. Ten months cramped in a tiny apartment that we also shared with two other women, one of them in her 50's--we were under 25. Don't get me wrong, my sister and I are great friends and always have tons of fun...when we live in separate houses. Not one single room with no privacy. In the mornings, if we didn't keep a window open, we were always faced with a terrible peculiar smell in our room, like a combination of mildew, rotting food, and sour breath. It's hard not to wake up in a bad mood when that's the first conscious breath you suck in every day. 


But the times when my sister and I traveled Europe alone, fending off the guys and hopping moving trains, are ones I will never forget. Despite our many cat fights, we rocked that trip, and came out the other end closer than before. I'm lucky to have her as a sister.


I'm also lucky to have the parents I do. Still together after so many years, they are my dual solid rock, and I don't know what I'd do without them. Oh we've had our moments....or maybe I should say years. I gave them hell all throughout my teenage life, and still today I probably make them beg "WHY!!! Why can't she be more like her sister!!!" I'm definitely the black sheep in the family. Possibly even the entire family--extended and all--with the exception of an older cousin who I'm pretty sure disappointed her parents' expectations just as much as I have mine.


The funny thing is that I would be considered an angel compared to most. I can't say it was easy being a teenager in my parent's household. Despite the fact that they never raised their voices, hit, or belittled, they were strict in nearly every aspect, albeit in love. Probably a large contributing factor is because we are Seventh-day Adventists. Adventists seem to develop a bad reputation for being strict and boring. Although slander against my religion tends to raise my defenses,  I don't necessarily disagree. Growing up I was restricted from doing a lot of things because of the "SDA beliefs". Things like no dancing, no jewelry, no revealing clothes, no bad language, no rated R movies, no drinking or smoking, no eating "unclean" meat (I'm fine with that one), no doing anything remotely "worldly" on Sabbath, no sex before marriage, etc etc. I'm pretty sure the Adventists of today could get into a huge fight with the older generation Adventists who still actually follow all these rules to the T...oh wait, actually they already have.


My mom especially, who was converted to Adventism as a teenager after a life of being "worldly", is so adamant about following the Bible and the Adventist beliefs that she literally cannot comprehend why I would make the choice to do something I know isn't right. My dad seems a little more understanding, but if he's shocked he usually tends to keep it to a facial expression that says "well that was stupid". 

It's unbelievable to me how I've never once heard my parents even say a bad word. And I'm not talking about avoiding the F bomb, I mean I've never even heard them say "crap" or "hell" (unless they're referring to purgatory). I remember once my dad told me not to say "freakin'" because it was a spin-off of the F word. Huh?! If I were to invent a word to use when I felt the need to spout off some frustration, and then everyone else starting using that same word when they stubbed their toe or accidentally deleted their term paper off their computer, it would suddenly become a word I could no longer say tastefully. 


Bad language is the least of my problems; I really don't care for cussing anyways. The real disappointment for my parents came when I hit college. That was when I got my belly button pierced, went dancing for the first time, and discovered that my new single-hood after the breakup of my first high school boyfriend of 3 years was the best thing to happen to me yet. I still clearly remember when I went home during a school break and, after an argument with my mom over something completely unrelated, blurted out that while we were fighting I might as well tell her I got my belly button pierced too. She called my dad into the room and it was like I'd just had an affair with a married man...."Why, why did you do this!" Of course, being taught all my life that putting holes in your body for the sake of vanity is not what the Bible teaches, my mom couldn't understand why I would do it. My dad was more to the point: "What do you like about it?" 
"Well....it's pretty and I've always wanted to do it." 
Long pause. "Well, we're very disappointed in you." 


But the good thing about my parents is that once they've talked to me about my bad decision, made it clear how they feel about it, and remind me to stay close to God, that's usually the end of it. Not once since that day have either of them said a word about my belly button piercing, and I doubt they ever will. 


I've done my fair share of disappointing and shocking them since. I always seemed to get into trouble with boys, once even getting kicked off staff at summer camp because me and a guy "friend" decided it would be fun to spend our night off in the camp's fire tower. The most we did that night was kiss, but the camp director and everyone else seemed to think we'd gone at it like rabbits up there. I spent the rest of that summer pulling weeds out of my dad's never-ending Iris garden. 
 
Discovery that I didn't save myself for marriage and two pierced ears later, I've told my mom that I think I'm through doing things to disappoint her. Only now I've kinda started to want a tattoo.... But my boyfriend doesn't like that idea either, so most likely it won't happen. But if I do, it will be a black-light tattoo that reads: "I belong to me"....it's a Jessica Simpson song that really hit home to me a few years back, and because of that I want a constant reminder that no matter what, I am my own person.

Truth be told, I'm glad my parents were so strict with me when I was young, because I like to think I turned out pretty good. They've gotten better at just saying "oh" when I tell them something horrifying, and they've still been there for me and love me with all their hearts no matter what. And the feeling's mutual. Perhaps though, you can better understand the title of my blog now--remember the things you were taught, and be the best you can be--but be you. Be something extraordinary.