Just musing :)

And while that title was not originally supposed to be a pun, I want to say off the cuff that OH MY GRAVY MATT BELLAMY IS GONNA BE A DADDY.

(I like me some Muse. Yes, indeedy.)

He and Kate Hudson have been dating for nine months, and Kate is 14 weeks pregnant. So says Wendy Williams.

+

=
Beautiful interfaith baby. =D

Anyway. While I collect my breath from my fangirl outburst, allow me to tell you what I was "Muse"ing about. (Why, yes. That time, it was an intentional pun. You clever reader, you.)

I'm aware that people change as they get older. This change, I suppose, is referred to as "le coming of age." And it has spawned many gag-nasty novels and movies about young girls/boys coming into their own in a world that wants to do nothing but embrace them.

Well, I had never really given much thought to how much I had changed in my own coming of age until recently. And I thought it deserved to be written about, especially somewhere on the web where no-one ventures and there's the occasional tumbleweed and no-one to join me in the puke-fest that is my own coming of age.

Allow me, therefore, to paint for you a picture.

Physically, I haven't grown since about fourth grade. I've lost weight - and struggled to keep what I've got so as not to make my parents ask me awkward questions about my nonexistant anorexia - but I have remained the same height, the same stature, etc. etc. etc. since about age 11-ish.

(Being occasionally mistaken for a child does have its perks, I have to admit.)

Intellectually, I've always been a nerd. I learned to read when I was three. Ish. I used to annoy the hell out of my teachers because I always made 100%s on my spelling tests (I had one that made me write out my own spelling lists before finally excusing me from them altogether). Even now, I'm ranked number one in my class (senior in high school and I can't wait to get the hell out of that place).

So the changes to me have been a tish more subtle. Or not.

Let's address the obvious.

I was raised a Christian. I went to AWANAS and earned every badge available. I was in a Baptist church nearly every Sunday, and I read my own Bible cover-to-cover. I was "born again" when I was seven and tried to convert all of my little friends. The first story I ever wrote was a retelling of the birth of Jesus when I was four - complete with stick-figure illustrations. I was baptized when I was 10, and I have worn a purity ring since I was 12.

Only now I wear that purity ring because I don't want to get weird questions from my family on why one of my beloved rings is missing.

Now, I call it my "I'm down with Jesus" ring.

Not my "Jesus is my forever friend" ring.

Just a nod towards a Jew that became this Messiah figure around the time of Paul when formerly all of his followers were Jews and would have balked at the idea of being called anything else.

That being said.

Now? Well, I'm not exactly Christian, to put it lightly. If anything, I'm considering Judaism. I'm dating an Atheist, and I have to gnaw my tongue at church. (I still occasionally go to a baptist one with my grandmother, who doesn't know about my slip from Happy Happy Jesus Time.)

I am now a vegetarian; this was my first big step away from my big, Southern family's norm.

I dabbled in everything from Evangelism to Hinduism to Krishna Consciousness to Wicca to Druidism to Catholicism before finally landing on Judaism - no Jews in my family.

My boyfriend of three years is English. And being in a long-distance relationship, one of us has got to move eventually. And it's probably going to be me, and I'm probably going to get some sort of English citizenship, eventually.

When I go to college, I will become a vegan.

And when I vote for the first time (I couldn't bring myself to vote in my state's gubernatorial election; a choice between Good Ol' Boy #1 and Good Ol' Boy #2 isn't a good enough choice for me.) it will be as a liberal.

So I started out as a meat-eater. Conservative. Christian. A patriotic American.

Now? I'm a vegetarian-in-transition-to-veganism. A liberal. A maybe-Jew. And I'm finding that I fall short of patriotism.

I hate to sound emo, folks, but my coming of age led me away from my family.

Now, thankfully, the family to which I am closest understands this. My mother is my dearest friend. My father "gets" me better than most people (although he's not so chill with me possibly becoming a Jew).

But otherwise? Man, my family had issues swallowing down my decision to dye my hair blue and to forego the Thanksgiving turkey. If they found out I was liberal?

And not baptist?

Or even Christian, for that matter?

Family reunions in the future are going to look something like:

Not quite sure on how I feel about this.

So, no. My coming-of-age, while not altogether even close to being rotten, is certainly not what I would have imagined as a child. If I had been asked at age eight where I'd be in ten years, I probably would have described the opposite of my feminist, animal-rights-loving, gay-marriage-toting, foul-mouthed (and yet trying to remedy that), vegetarian self.

I'm the same height. I have the same IQ. But I couldn't be anymore different.

And while I'm not sure on how I feel about that - whether good or bad - I am certainly fine with it.

PS: I have this image of me trying to get my English citizenship and showing some stuffy customs official my paperwork.

"This says you're a Harvard grad. Jewish ethnicity. And your last place of residence was in Boston?" (My Harvard interview is coming up. Just cross your fingers and roll with me, folks.)

"Why, yes, ma'am. That's just about right." I'd giggle here, trying to lighten the situation. And of course I'd say this in a strong Southern accent that I just can't seem to completely shake.

"...I don't believe you."

"Pardon?"

"Get out. I don't believe you."

And that would be that.