by I.C.
I have lived my life with a sort of luminous double, a potential self I’ll call the “good girl,” as close as my own breath and as far away as a star. As I come from a conservative Christian background, in which messages about appropriate feminine traits were inescapable, this imaginary figure gained a good deal of power over me, and I spent many years of my life trying to attain the promise of perfection she held out. It was a very traditional, even retrograde, type of perfection. Being a good girl meant being obedient, modest, meek. The good girl did not speak until spoken to, concealed negative emotions, and if she didn’t have anything nice to say, she didn’t say anything at all. For those traits, I believed, she would ultimately be rewarded with approval and love. Continue reading “The Recovering Good Girl”
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