One Girl's Descent into Magical Realism

Maybe if I was one of those manic pixie dream girls with clothes from Goodwill and an interest in obscure socio-political issues, this geek girl blog thing would be a cinch.

Not pictured: Me

Too bad my inability to take myself seriously, impatience with actual shopping, and aversion to organized ideology (my faith excepted...most of the time) kinda prevents me from descending into that exhausting stereotype. And oddball curvy cynic girls don't have a market yet. Damn. But with this whole geek-chic phenomena, I had to ask myself: am I really a geek?

The other day, a coworker asked me why I like Lord of the Rings. That should be an easy question for me--practically rhetorical. It is, after all, pretty much the foundation of my geekdom.

But I had no answer for her. At least, not right away.

My (over)fondness for Lord of the Rings is assumed, so embedded in my identity that it's probably (actually) frightening. But why? What set it apart from the thousands of other books I've read (and reread) and the hundreds of other movies I've watched (and rewatched)?

These questions took me into the often not-so-fun territory of Introspection Land. I'm a semi-permanent resident, but with these questions, I was heading directly into the territory I try to avoid as much as possible. But I had to know.

Lord of the Rings first entered my life when I was five, and transitioning from the sweet girl of yesteryear to the absolute terror I still am today. (This is no exaggeration--just ask my mother.) My uncle Mark gave my brother a boxed set of the trilogy and The Hobbit--editions we still own today (what a great gift!). I tried reading The Hobbit a year or two later. I remember sitting in the parking lot of the Pentagon, paperback in hand. But, even as a precocious six- or seven-year-old, I didn't get through it. It went back to the shelf, half unread.

Fast forward four-ish years and across three continents. At this point in the story, I was a brash-yet-timid middle schooler, suddenly unsure of myself as my elementary school popularity disappeared in a new school in a new country. Over the next three years, I would develop adolescent insecurities into full-blown anxiety, holding myself to impossible moral, physical, and social ideals, and then castigating myself for my inevitably continual failures. It's a pattern I still have yet to escape.

I know what you're thinking: How is this not the pinnacle of physical perfection?

Now that's a pretty bleak picture. It's taken me years to fully appreciate the lasting impact those years have had on my identity. But I realized, as I contemplated Lord of the Rings, that I have dwelt almost exclusively on the negatives. And that isn't fair. It isn't fair to the people and places and things that have given me joy. And it isn't fair to me to dwell in the dark places--it just keeps me in the aforementioned self-destructive pattern.

Lord of the Rings is, without a doubt, a thing that has given me joy. The books and movies provide an escape for my heartsick soul--I still watch parts of the movies and listen to the soundtracks when I'm upset. But the it's so much more than that--they also represent unbelievably bright spots in my adolescences and (now, I guess) adulthood.

For me, Lord of the Rings represents my community. My two greatest friends--I'll call them S and C--in middle school (who are now awesome women) were also Lord of the Rings fans. I spent many lunches in a teacher's classroom playing LotR Trivial Pursuit with S. C and I howled over the badly translated subtitles of her The Two Towers DVD. I stood in line for hours with my brother and other friends to catch the belated premiere of Return of the King at the Benny Decker Theater. One of my favorite nights with my dad in middle school involved pizza dinner, followed by him purchasing me the soundtrack for The Two Towers. To this day, my mom and I skip chick flicks and watch the extended editions when I'm home for the holidays. During my sophomore year in college, my girlfriends and I bonded with a group of guys (one of them a YMS alum) over a Lord of the Rings marathon, a bond that was sealed by two years of living in the same apartment building and a beautiful wedding this past summer.

Lord of the Rings also represents a new world that was opened to me in middle school--the genre of fantasy. Lord of the Rings and David Eddings' Polgara the Sorceress (a joy first introduced to me by the aforementioned joy, my friend S) and their worlds got under my skin. My love for fantasy was born. By the time I left Yokosuka, I had even begun to write my own work.

Of course, my love of reading, writing, and watching fantasy hasn't always made things easy for me. In high school, it set me apart (compounding my non-Southern background). I was stifled and challenged for it in that conservative environment. I wrestled with that love, and many other things, emerging spiritually exhausted. During that time, Lord of the Rings was hope for me as a Christian writer of fantasy (not a writer of Christian fantasy--big difference). See! I told myself. It can happen. Christianity can produce fantastical culture, instead of running away from it. (Disclaimer: I love The Chronicles of Narnia, yes, but Lewis' creative allegory just didn't have quite the same effect on me.)

So I stuck with it. And I've written a complete, not-terrible fantasy novel, something I'm so unbelievably proud of. Fantasy has become my passion, vocation, and creative joy. God has given me this love, and time after time, He uses it to pull me out of the dark places of my life. It's not something I would've chosen for myself at age eleven--but He gave it to me anyway.

Now, ten or so years after middle school, I'm still brash-yet-timid. I still struggle with anxiety. I like hard rock, hot coffee, dark chocolate, and I own more t-shirts than I need. So no, I'm not a manic pixie dream girl. I'm not sure if I am anyone's dream girl.

But I am a geek. And, to be honest, I don't know where I'd be without that part of myself. So, for now, I'll rejoice that being a geek is somewhat socially acceptable. I don't know how long that bubble will last, but when it bursts, I'll still be there. Quoting Lord of the Rings.