What the bleep? You gotta be bleepin' kidding me.

One winter morning somewhat recently, I awoke shortly after my extremely adorable, extremely beloved little cat Choochie scratched my nose with her extremely sharp claw. You can't see it very well in the photo above (if you can see it at all), but it left a small scab on the left side of my nose. It healed quickly, and it was kind of hidden in my sea of freckles, anyway, but it was a painful way to start the day. I don't think Choochie was trying to hurt me. She was just trying to snuggle under the covers with me because she was cold and because snuggling and napping together is what cats do. (Actually, there are a lot of strange things that cats do. While I was typing those past two sentences, Choochie was chewing on the collar of my T-shirt. I'm convinced that she has a pica, and she is a neverending source of natural, non-electronic entertainment.)

I've drawn a boundary with Choochie. As much as I would love for her to snuggle with me on my pillow at night, I can't let her do it anymore because her whiskers poke my face and keep me awake. And now she accidentally scratches me. But here's another crazy fact: When I took her in 11 and a half years ago, I basically rescued her from getting declawed because her previous owners couldn't afford the procedure. I chose to let her keep her claws. I want her and my other cat Macho to keep their claws because, in my opinionated opinion, a cat without claws just ain't a cat. (Declawed cats, from my experience, are exponentially meaner than clawed cats. Declawed cats bite, possibly to compensate for their lack of claws.) I have to chase my cats around the apartment about once a month to trim their nails, and I occasionally get scratched, but they get to keep their claws. And I have to keep an eye on their nails because if they get too long, they could get caught on stuff, and my babies could get hurt. (When Choochie was a kitten, her little thumbnail got caught on the metallic part of her collar once.) So, nail maintenance can get complicated, but in my opinionated opinion, it's worth it.

Here's another thing about being a cat in my household. My cats are my furry family. My cats and I are a package deal. I want my cats to be as close to me as possible while observing the boundaries that I set for them. (Why do I feel like submitting an idea to Cloud and Townsend for a Boundaries With Cats book? On second thought, it would be a very short book. Insert rimshot here.) I want them to be comfortable enough around me to be the cats they were created to be. I just don't like my face to get scratched. (And I haven't even mentioned my furniture, but that's replaceable.)

"Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge." (Psalm 62:8)

"Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord." (Psalm 139:4)

I think I've quoted Psalm 62:8 before on this blog. Teaching me how to pour out my heart to Him was a major way that God began to set me free from depression about 11 years ago. In many ways, I was like a clogged drain emotionally. I needed to learn how to keep the flow going by puking out my emotions to Him, receiving His love, and repeating the process continually. Recently, He took me through another season of learning how to do so at a deeper, scarier level.

Perhaps anyone who follows me on Twitter remembers me mentioning a few months ago that I was learning how to cuss in God's presence. Because I was extremely angry at God while I was depressed all those years ago, the concept of being angry at God pretty much scares the crap out of me. But recently while I was going through a deeply emotional, scary season, after I did some majorly crazy things that God had told me to do, He basically encouraged me to be angry at Him, because that's how I was feeling, and He wanted me to just let it out. Jesus showed me that He died for me so that I could have that honest of a relationship with Father God.

I would like to balance what I said in the previous paragraph. I love God. I fear God. I don't want to disrespect God. I don't want to recommend anyone disrespecting God or hating Him or spitting in His face like I did in my suicidal past. But what He taught me personally just a few months ago was that there was some stuff inside me that He needed to remove, and His presence was the safest place for Him to do so.

So, in the refuge of His presence (like Psalm 62:8 mentions), in an environment that He controlled, where He called the shots and kept me safe, He squeezed some stuff out of me, and much of it happened through me cussing. Instead of whitewashing over my feelings, I needed to be exasperated about some bad stuff that had happened to me in my past. God needed to show me His perspective on the bad stuff and correct what I had believed about it. This all happened during a brief season. (He doesn't allow me to cuss in His presence anymore.) He showed me that I was like a tea bag that needed to steep. I was just obeying what He told me to do. From what I can tell, the anger and bitterness are gone, I'm much more honest with Him than I used to be, and He and I bonded through that series of experiences. It was kind of weird (I don't think they offer a How To Cuss With God class at church), but that's how God restored part of my soul. Actually, I've noticed that He tends to do a lot of cathartic exercises with people like me who were hurt in the past by being stifled emotionally.

When Jesus redeemed me, He didn't declaw me emotionally. He let me keep my emotions and my free will, and He didn't turn me into a robot. He doesn't want me to hurt Him, but He wants me to express myself to Him honestly. He already knows how I feel, anyway. Perhaps He wants me to discover how I honestly feel. In this post, I specifically talked about anger, but I really think God wants us to pour out all of the emotions in our hearts -- sadness, happiness, fear, contentment, confusion, relief -- not just anger.

Jesus is my Lord, but He's also my Best Friend. Intimate friends are extremely honest with each other. They aren't rude to each other, but there are times when the polite masks just come off and they're more real with each other than ever.

A mask -- why the bleep didn't I think of that bleepin' sooner?!? What a good idea for protecting my face from untrimmed claws! I'm kidding. My kitties delight my heart, no matter how sharp their claws get. As I type this, Choochie has nestled into a purring ball of feline snugglylove on my lap. Wait. No, she just jumped off. Oh, well. She's welcome back anytime.

You got a problem with my gentle and quiet spirit?

[Rather than cuing the theme music, single chick sits at her coffee table and eats her lunch. As she bites down on her pepperoni pizza and its greasy cheese oozes at the corners of her mouth, she is very content to listen to the ticking clock on the wall instead of any kind of music. Macho, her large orange cat, reclines in her lap and stares intensely up at his mama while subtly disguising his pizza-stealing agenda with a desire to snuggle. Single chick finally remembers that she's supposed to be hosting an episode for her readers. Still chewing, she begins to speak.]

Oh. What's up, y'all? This is another episode of Here's What It's Like To Be Single Theater. [She wipes the corners of her mouth with a napkin. Then she hesitates.] I'm sorry. I'm distracted by the orangeness of this grease on a white napkin. It kinda matches my cat. Ooo. [She stares at her napkin in silence for a moment. Macho meows, waking her up to reality.] Hi, kitten.

So, usually on Here's What It's Like To Be Single Theater, I conduct diversity training about singlehood. If you'd like to catch up on past episodes, please check out previous blog entries from 4/23/11 and 11/29/11. Today, instead of focusing on singlehood, I'd like to focus on womanhood. There seem to have been some stereotypes about this particular topic throughout the centuries. Yes, that was an intentional understatement. I struggled a bit to come up with an original title for this blog post without ripping off anyone else's ideas, i.e., parodying Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman," which honestly seems a bit insulting to me as a female despite its intoxicating melody, or that "I am woman, hear me roar" song which I have yet to actually hear but have heard parodied ad nauseum and actually parodied myself once. Hmm. I wonder if I should just pull it up on YouTube and... I'm sorry. I distracted myself again with my stream of consciousness.

"Do not let your adornment be merely outward -- arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel -- rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 3:3-4, NKJV)

I had a friend once who was disturbed by the above Scripture reference. She had a disposition that was neither gentle nor quiet. I basically told her that it says "gentle and quiet spirit, not gentle and quiet personality." We're created in God's image, right? He gives us different personalities. Some of us women have very driven and strong personalities, while other women have very gentle and quiet personalities, while the rest of us women have a random mixture of something in between all that.

Last month, I attended women's events at two completely different church venues two nights in a row. The first event was a good night overall, but as I walked out of the building amidst a crowd of cackling, I didn't really feel like I fit in. The second night started out with a fashion show and a shocking declaration that the eyebrows are the most important part of a woman's face, and it also was a good night overall, but I think it helped to solidify the feelings that I'm about to express in this post...

Women are a diverse bunch of people! We aren't all the same! Not all of us are into beauty tips and cooking and collecting pink outfits! In fact, some of us ferociously run away from all of that! Some of us are nerdy and quite proud of it! Some of us hate to wear makeup and are allergic to perfume! Some of us are extremely artsy-fartsy, to the point of distracting ourselves while we're blogging!

I can't speak for everybody, but for me, the more God frees up my soul, the more secure I become in my womanhood. Heck yes, I want to look good. But my style probably won't be found on any runway. My style is more the punk-wannabe look that I sported back in the 90s, around the time when I stopped wearing makeup. I have to trim my nails short so that they don't interfere with playing my guitar. (I used to buff my nails nice and shiny, but I stopped that after I started to play the guitar so much that the friction started buffing/ripping off half of one of my nails.) My schedule has become so busy that "cooking" has turned into heating up TV dinners and eating sandwiches, and I've become best buddies with my dishwasher. I only shop for clothes when I wear out my old ones. And I'm OK with that.

Not all women are clueless about "manly" things like sports, hunting, or cars. And not all men are clueless about "womanly" things like fashion, housekeeping, or openly expressing emotions. Actually, I really wish that someone had taught me much earlier in life that that last one is completely OK and even normal for women (and men) to do. When something hurts or just hits you strongly, it's OK to cry! There are a lot of things that I really wish I had known earlier about being a woman, and I wish I had been encouraged to explore the reasons why I was drawn to certain things instead of stifling them or pretending that they weren't there. Perhaps the good things I was drawn to could have blossomed sooner, and perhaps the bad things I was drawn to could have been cut off sooner.

For example, would you like to see some of the toys that I used to play with when I was a little girl? (I'm planning to sell them on eBay soon.)

Aw, yeah, I liked action figures. I owned dolls, too, but what made the action figures more fun than the dolls was their intricate details. Check out the muscles on those plastic little bods! I like details. Artsy-fartsy people like details. We drown in details. Also, the first time I discovered what a "tomboy" was, I was discouraged from calling myself one. I wonder if perhaps I'd been allowed to label myself as such earlier in life, I could have dealt with some extremely important gender issues earlier in life.

Earlier in this post, I mentioned that being a woman means having a gentle and quiet spirit. What are some other things that the Bible says about what it really means to be a woman?

"The heart of her husband safely trusts her." (Proverbs 31:11a, NKJV)

"She is like the merchant ships, bringing her food from afar. She gets up while it is still dark; she provides food for her family and portions for her servant girls... She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for the tasks... She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness... Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." (Proverbs 31:14-15, 17, 25-27, 30 NIV)

The other day, I walked into a grocery store to do my regular mundane grocery shopping, and I noticed that I was very excited about it. God showed me that I'm a woman; therefore, I like to shop. Yes, even doing something as non-thrilling as walking into a grocery-store deli and picking out a salad and a bottle of juice is exciting for me in a relaxing, yay-I-get-to-choose-something-from-zillions-of-detailed-options kind of way.

Technically, the verses in Proverbs 31 are talking about being a wife. However, since there's no guarantee that I'm ever going to become anyone's wife, I don't think that I'm exempt from taking these verses seriously. I want to be the kind of woman that God can trust. I want to fear Him. I want to walk and talk wisdom. I was not designed to sit around and do nothing and gossip. I was designed to be diligent. I was designed to "hunt" for things like bargains and time-savers, and then bring them home to hungry people and excitedly declare, "Look what I found!" No, there isn't anything wrong with being a woman who's a girly-girl who likes to wear perfume and paint her nails and match her makeup with her outfit. But if all that becomes her sole focus, perhaps she's missed the entire point of being a woman.

Wait. What was I saying? I'm sorry. I distracted myself again. I think maybe I should stop typing and finish writing my new song.

Thanks again, y'all, for joining me here on Here's What It's Like To Be Single Theater. Hmm. I wonder if I should change the show's title to Here's What It's Like To Learn How to Be Yourself Theater. [Lost in her artsy-fartsy thoughts, single chick belches aloud. Purring aloud on her lap, Macho sniffs the aroma of his mama's lunch. He has forgotten about his pizza-stealing agenda and is completely lost in the snuggliness of his mama's love.] Stay tuned to Windowbrawl, where I hope to blog soon about Choochie.