Two Songs Rewritten for the Tunes Sake

I just watched Mona Lisa Smile, and for all the nasty reviews it got, I really liked it. Got me thinking, about love, and my so called "fiery personality" which is ostensibly (according to several men) the reason why I have not had the pleasure of experiencing the great mystery that is Love. Perhaps this is the reason why I hated my college, and my town, where having a size four waist and knowing the right people will get you further then a quick wit, an open mind, and books read. Where girls are still presented to society as eligable housewives. Don't peg me as a progressive ice queen just yet, I dream of house and family just as any girl does. But I don't want daughters who look to me only as an extension of my husband, and I dont want my husband to think of me that way either. I'm sorry, that is not the way that I was raised. I want my daughters to look at me and see what I have done with my life. I want to travel. I want to see things, and be able to tell them. I want to be able to say that I know who I am when I have been married fifty years. I'm sorry Charleston, and Summerville, that I am not a perfect ten, that I dont play tennis, and that, sadly, I wont be coming out at the Debutante Ball next year, as has been the plan since I came to this city (for more reasons then one, lord knows, if its what my parents wanted, I would hold my head up high, don my white kid gloves, and stride into that ballroom like a woman on a mission.)

What I fear the most is that this mentality will eventually drive me to unhappiness. That I will not find the man who supports me in my endeavor to be myself, at least not here in this place. I do not want to be alone because of my noble intention to be a strong women. It is so hard for me to watch the girls I grew up with bask in the warm light of puppy love, and it is even harder to be the girl that people pity (yes pity, this is afterall, Charleston) because I dont have a strong arm to cling to. It is equally as hard to be the girl that boys see as "one of the guys", because I do not always say the right thing, or wear the right outfit, or act the right way. It scares me when men tell me that the reason I am alone is because I am not "meek" enough for their liking. Am I to change myself? Am I to become "meek" in order to have a date to the movies? This doesnt mean I dont try, I feel like I shoudl explain myself, because I sound like one of these new age women who thinks that just because she is "strong", that some man who admires this quality in her will overlook the fact that she refuses to at least try to attract the opposite sex. Im not under the impression that an equally progressive man will fall into my lap, and somehow see past the fact that that day, I happen to not be wearing makeup, and am sporting sweatpants and cross trainers. I do realize, that in any environment, I must play the game, and dance the dance. I must diet and do my hair, and obsess over makeup (I do all of these things, regularly...). All I want is a man who will not be astonished when I talk back. Someone who is willing to look past my bad days, someone who values my wit and my tendancy to not be "meek" as much as he values my smile and my hair. I want someone who is willing to take the time to know me, to want that enough to bear through the wall I have built out of my extreme fear of someone knowing me well. Perhaps I want him to have a wall too. I want someone to miss me when we are not together, to miss talking to me, I want him to want to tell me things that he thinks he cannot tell other people. I want him to value the fact that my opinion is my own, and probably will not change. Tall order, I know. I'm so frusterated. I cannot count the times that I have contemplated changing myself for the sake of a relationship, and I simply cannot. What am I going to do with myself?