Wrangler Dani

It’s a general theme of teenage angst-rock to remain undefined. Today, I think I’m getting in touch with my inner confused 17-year-old, because I’m completely sick of being told who I am and how I should think.

Today I was talking with a co-worker who asked what I thought of Rolling Stone magazine. Feeling slightly more outspoken and caffeinated than normal, I might have called it a “leftist rag”. Maybe.

Anyways, upon this pronouncement, (in my defense, he did ask my opinion…) I was instantly greeted with gasps and chortles from the Peanut Gallery. “You’re kidding!” “OK, Miss Granola-Built-My-Family’s-Solar-Powered-House…” “You’re such a free spirit!” “Don’t you love nature?”

Yes, I do. I love nature and I love ranches and cowboys and pick-ups. My family built our own home because we DIDN’T buy something we couldn’t afford or go into debt to pay someone else to do it for us or ask our government to bail us out. It also took us 10 years or perseverance and prayer and sweat. I love free expression. I love art and writing and health food, but I also believe that there is right and wrong, and that beauty, down-time and health don’t come without a cost. I believe in helping those less fortunate, and I believe that only through a Higher Power can real life-change happen.

I am a Christian. A cowgirl. A wife-to-be. A writer. A 20-something. A Republican. A free-thinker. A college graduate. A professional. I am flawed and broken and in need of grace every day.

I don’t fit the defined paradigm of a compassionate, well-educated 20-something, but I’m OK with that.