-for lack of a better title-

Whether it's my low self-esteem or my pride, or an odd combination of my low self-esteem and pride, I relish my victories. I like seeing I've accomplished something worthwhile; I read every satisfying blog post/essay/facebook status to the point of memorization because I'm amazed and thrilled at the way the words sound. I look at pictures from a show I felt I acted well in, or an instance that happened to be captured where I looked particularly nice. It's the later that bleeds more toward vanity, but I believe I let vanity have its moment because, to my low self-esteem, those moments are so few and long awaited and deserved that they have to be enjoyed.

I was looking forward to dwelling in this victory. I was anticipating with heightened senses dwelling in him and how I won. I was going to woo him, win him, keep him, and lie down at night with the knowledge that he was in my arms, in my bed.

And then he disappeared.

I saw Weber State University's production of Charm tonight, an up-and-coming play written by Kathleen Cahill about Margaret Fuller (female writer in a time when female writers were...less than desirable). The play focuses on women's rights and feminism and homosexuality and sexual discovery, and as much as my Mormon conservative cannot bare it, I have a confession.

I connect IMMENSELY to Margaret Fuller (at least, for the sake of the remainder of the post, as portrayed in Charm). I have for about a year or so abandoned private journal writing (catching up would require too much time, so when the urge to write about myself comes I usually obscurely blog), but I can't take the secrecy right now, and maybe I'll wake up tomorrow with bloodshot eyes and a lack of sleep headache, and promptly delete this, but I feel the urge to speak. And I know it doesn't matter because no one follows this anymore, except my father who checks up on the random. To whom I say hello and sorry.

No, I'm not coming out.

My Public Speaking teacher last year constantly joked that LDS members got married so young because, to be frank, they couldn't take the sexual frustration that waiting for marriage inflicted. Because they have to wait and can't...experience prior, everyone settles at a young age because they just want to know....what it's like.

This is the part I'm afraid of, the part I hate to admit even when I'm by myself.

I want to know what it's like.

I want to know what it's like.

But the thing that keeps me celibate and patient, besides the fact that n'er a young man will look my way, is that I have more in my heart than I do in my pants. I want a man, but I want a man that will love me. I want a man that will let me listen to and talk about Jason Mraz, become house-poor with me, go to the theatre with me, make me with child and smile at me constantly because he loves me and he loves that I'm carrying his child and I'm his and...

The Mormon conservative straightens her skirt.

The feminists rend their blazers and trousers.

I like traditional gender roles.

I crave traditional gender roles.

Not as removed as the Victorian Era, but I would be content to consider myself a possession of my husband, and I'm not meaning as a lifeless slug but...to belong to someone. To belong with someone. That's what I mean.

And it's the idea of having someone hold me not for one night or one hour, but for now until the red moon sets and the four horsemen ride and the Devil is bound for a millennium and later defeated, being in his arms forever is what keeps the Margaret Fuller at bay.

But Margaret and I do agree on one issue: no one seems to find us desirable.

But he was starting to. He was slipping toes into the water, and I was ready to greet him, to immerse him by degrees, to convince him we could work. I was going to win him, forever silencing the nag who says we'll die an old unpublished maid, eventually satisfying the Margaret Fuller, and giving the Mormon conservative a place to rest her head.

And then he disappeared.