My Philosophy

The Standard Romance and Me

Most of us have read or watched the romance: perfect man meets perfect woman.  Granted, they both have one major flaw.  Once they get past that one major flaw, the man makes life perfect for her, and she is rewarded for good behavior.  It's Disney's "Cinderella" all over again.  Many of us have internalized the story to such an extent that we crave it and tell ourselves, "One day, that will be me."  This was my dream for the longest time.  If only I could be Cinderella, the perfect girl, then the perfect man would give me all my dreams.  I internalized the need to be the perfect, beautiful, docile girl if I ever wanted that romance.  

I tried to be docile and shy for a long time.  It came naturally to me.  But I developed a complex about my increasing weight and need to wear glasses.  How could I get married if I couldn't be perfect?  Over time, I rejected Cinderella's mandate.  I learned to overcome my docility and learned helplessness and become confident.  I decided I did not need a man to make me happy.  I had my own Elsa-like declaration to take that perfect girl fiction and "Let it Go."  Furthermore, I noticed more and more there were no perfect girls, no perfect guys, that happily ever after was fiction, and that not just beautiful, docile women were getting married.   I fully noticed that the standard romance was fiction.   

Embracing Imperfection

Once I became confident and embraced my ability to take care of myself, I was able to look for a man on my own terms, one who suited me, not just one who would choose me for my passivity.  I noticed that guys who choose girls for their passive natures can also be those who abuse them.  I wanted a man who embraced me for who I was. And I found him on my terms and in my way.  I didn't wait passively for him to seek me out.  When I found him and knew him to be the person I wanted, I pursued him for a year and a half until he decided I was right and that we belonged together.  

The truth is I am not alone in my imperfection.  I have yet to meet a perfect man or a perfect woman in reality.  And romance doesn't solve all problems for man or woman.  In fact, it can create many more complications than it solves.  From my experience, few people fit the profile described in most books I read: physically, mentally, and emotionally "normal," beautiful, white.  Almost everyone I know personally only appears to live the perfect life from the outside.  From inside their world, most people have a condition of some sort, some kind of disability or difficulty that complicates their life.  I have insomnia.  My husband has depression.  I've recently gone through every member of my family and figured out something that could give them a diagnosis now or in the past.  

People like to think that normal means being free from these struggles, but the truth is life is hard.  It's meant to be.  If we don't have struggles, we don't have any reason to reach out for help from others or from God.  We don't have a way to learn compassion for others who also struggle.  From my experience, there's nothing normal about being normal.  Normal is a setting on a dryer.  So where's their story?  Where's our story? 

Searching for our Story

I've heard it argued that romantic fiction is supposed to depict a fantasy world, a world of perfection.  But from my experience, the expectation of perfection created by these stories, especially in the young, can be damaging.  I see people who seek a hero or heroine with whom to identify, someone who speaks to their life and experience.  Latin Americans search with little success to find very many Latinos in media.  Native Americans do the same.  Black Americans find more success, but so much of it is stereotyped.  Where's the romance for the overweight woman or the emotionally scarred man or the diabetic individual?  

I join my voice to voices of a growing number of writers who are telling stories for the underrepresented reader, the ones who aren't a perfect ten in mind and body or who don't fit the "norm."  I'm an LDS romance author, and for now, that is my genre.  I know we have a loving Heavenly Father who yearns to help us through our struggles.  This is my philosophy, that nobody is perfect but God, so we look to Him to guide us through our personal stories.  Everyone is capable of finding joy.