Stand By Your Man

When you see something long enough or often enough, it sort of becomes normal. And things that are not offensive or “way out there” or grotesque become sort of acceptable… not so strange. Sort of like hairstyles — you know all the different hairstyles that characterize or define different generations or time periods. I remember looking at the hairstyles of the 60’s and thinking they were so attractive…and recalled that one day I just might have that beautiful style for my wedding… I planned on the beehive—the ultimate up-do! Instead, I had a 70’s *Toni Tennille cut. When I was a little girl I so wished I could have that poofy hair and wear giant curlers. Instead… I didn’t. There was a point to this post… I just can’t remember what it was — o, yah, stand by your man.

So… today I was working along and Sam called me in to see a youtube video. He was laughing… I’m not sure exactly what was so funny to him… was it the stiffness of the singer? was it that stiff hair? was it what she was singing so stiffly? Anyway… I came in to watch — (okay, and to laugh). I thought… omygoodness, the message of *the song was a good message — but the delivery: (!).

And so, like in that video/song, Stand By Your Man, if we stiffly deliver the message, the meaning will be missed or misconstrued — thereby, actually changing it altogether. So, I’m thinking about the words of that song… stand by your man… as women, we may believe or say we believe those words are true… and we say we “stand by our man,” but if our behaviour and actions don’t line up with those words, then really, the message we say we believe really isn’t true in our lives. Messages we believe will be lived in and through us — and if we don’t really believe the message, it’ll show — probably when we least anticipate it, it will show.

*this is not an endorsement of youtube or those two songs… they’re meant for humour only… nothing more and no browsing the youtube site.