Confounding expectations

If you know me much, you probably know that I’m not good at fitting into stereotypical boxes or under conventional labels. Having grown up attending a small school in a very insular community, where pre-kindergarten follies are doomed to dog you through high school, I’ve made it a mission of mine to confound expectations, to leave people guessing.

I certainly don’t match the picture of conventional young-womanhood. Ok, so I’ve followed the 18th-century playbook in a few ways: I can cook, clean, and sew; play a civilized musical instrument and sing light songs; speak a smattering of foreign languages (including the de rigueur French); sprinkle my polite conversation with literary and Biblical allusions; entertain small children; throw fancy parties; and sure, I’ve been known to paint a watercolor or two, or needlepoint by the fire.

But that’s about where it ends. I also fix my own car, curse like a sailor, would much rather spend a day at the range than the mall, and have been known to out-drink more than one male companion. I take about 5 minutes to get ready (10 if I have to polish my boots), detest women’s magazines, watch SportsCenter, not soap operas, and detest chick flicks (sappy love stories are only marginally permissible if bloody battles outweigh romantic longings by at least a 3:1 ratio). So I’m not about to be on the cover of Vogue any time soon.

The South African relatives I met, most of whom are solidly in the sit-and-genteely-drink-tea generation, weren’t quite sure what to make of me, this fearless Coast Guard chick traipsing about a country halfway around the world, alone but for a 12-page list of relatives’ names, cold-calling folks in the phone book, making up her itinerary as she went. One elderly relative in particular was most politely appalled. She did her best to shield her pointed questions, but the barbs became unmistakable.

“So, tell me about your family,” meaning not my parents and siblings, but a sidelong shot at my apparent lack of husband and children. Why hadn’t I “settled down”? Where were my traveling companions? The military…sailing around in foreign seas…driving ships: “Isn’t that a man’s job?”

Finally, she wound up to her final zinger, delivered with withering disdain: “Your hair…do they make you keep it that short for the military?”

“Oh, no,” I replied cheerfully. (How could I say the military wouldn’t let me cut it this short - I'd tried, and failed!) “I went through chemo and radiation this summer, and it’s just now starting to grow back.” “Excuse me?” “I went through chemo and radiation a few months ago and lost all my hair – it’s just now growing back. It’s coming in nicely, don’t you think?”

It silenced her for the duration.