Solo post from WW
today as BB is experiencing an electrical crisis (power’s out). In honor of today being the last Sunday of
2013, this week’s Dear Someone Sunday is addressed to (you guessed it!) 2013.
Dear Twenty-Thirteen,
Wow! What a year!
(Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say?)
But really, you were
a big year in my self-development. I
became immersed in the fantastic world of Doctor Who, endured the two most
harrowing academic semesters of my life, had my Great Feminist Awakening, and
started learning how to love my body.
Now, at the end of you, I’ve come out of it all with a healthier
perspective on life, a bachelor’s degree, and a world of possibility, which
seems like a pretty amazing way to start Twenty-Fourteen.
Let’s begin with my
inDoctorination. I started with Nine, as
most people do. Of course I keep
intending to go back and check out One through Eight, but I haven’t had time
what with Nine, Ten, Eleven, and excitingly, Twelve. I won’t go crazy here with my love for a
certain Gallifreyan, as this blog is dedicated to body empowerment rather than
Time Lords, but wow. There’s actually a
lot of interesting thoughts I have about feminism and body empowerment within
the DoctorWhoniverse, but perhaps another time.
Basically, I am now an addict and actually just finished the Christmas
special and OHMYGODSOGOOD.
Moving on to heavier
matters, I also fought my way through the last year of my undergraduate
degree. I started this year with sixty
textbooks (YUP 60), twenty-one credit hours in upper-level English courses (YUP
that’s seven courses), and a shitload of anxiety (funny side note: Microsoft
word accepts shitload as a unit of measurement, but not fuckton). After days and days of little or no sleep,
spent mostly in the library, fueled only by coffee and yesterday’s toast (oh,
and skittles – there was a ridiculous amount of skittles), I completed the
semester from Hell and surprisingly, it was my best semester yet for my
GPA. I went on to complete my student
teaching, which was really only “harrowing” because of it being my final
semester before graduation and because it was the culmination of everything
I’ve been working for. No pressure.
During that first
semester, the BB and I took a Feminist Theory class as a capstone course. This was what I call The Great Feminist
Awakening. Before college, I had
approximately the same idea of feminism as most people: feminists are extremist
man-hating lesbians. Okay, so I never
really thought that. But I knew that I
was absolutely NOT a feminist. Feminist
was a dirty word. Girl Power and all
that bullshit. In college, it evolved
to: I’m not really like a hardcore feminist.
In reality, I was probably a feminist all along, but didn’t know what it
was to be a feminist. I had no idea how
to identify that in myself. This class
brought that out in me. Now I am a
proud, self-proclaimed feminist, and I also happen to not be an extremist
man-hating lesbian. Yay me.
And finally,
Twenty-Thirteen, you gave me the valuable gift of time and experience to start
loving my body. I have been “struggling
with my weight” since I hit puberty, and out of all those years between then
and now, this is the most successful year I’ve had. I no longer “struggle with my weight”;
instead, I, in union with my body and my weight and my flaws and my beauty,
struggle against a negative and unhealthy perspective of self.
That is power, and
that is the power that you have helped me to achieve. Thanks for being the most productive year in
my life to date. I hope Twenty-Fourteen
is as nurturing as you! Lastly, in the fashion of the world's farewell to the beautiful, amazing, quirky, relatable Matt Smith as Raggedy-Man Eleven, THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING.
Much love,
WW
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