In My Best Dress, Fearless

I've been hearing a lot of Taylor Swift lately, and I think it's mostly because I have so many friends who love her. I mean, I literally had to promise to drive my friend's CDs back to her the next morning to get her to let me put them on my computer. I find that I do like Taylor's music, mostly because she doesn't curse all the time, she is talented, and above all, she writes the stories of our lives. Her songs are relatable, and that speaks to our hearts (yes, I think I can count myself among her fans, however casual).

One of the things that I like best about Taylor Swift's music is that she writes such sweet love songs. Quite a few of my friends and I have had our hearts broken, and as we try to work through all our different situations together, those are the songs that help to make us feel like there is still hope for our love lives. Currently, we're all starting a book by Jason and Crystallina Evert, called How to Find Your Soulmate Without Losing Your Soul, and although Taylor is wonderful to listen to, I think the Everts are helping us realize a problem that T. Swift exacerbates in our feminine personalities: emotional chastity.

It's something you almost never hear when adults speak about chastity, but it is a particular problem for teenage girls and young women, and I guess for women in general. Emotional chastity is being able to keep your emotions in check, and not let yourself get more attached to someone mentally and emotionally than you actually are. It's really hard, and even more so when you're feeling hurt or when you have a crush. I guess it's a woman's desire for authentic love and communion with other people that drives us to want to see connections that aren't there, but it's harmful to our hearts and to the relationships we actually have.

I know that I am guilty of this, and I think it's played a part in how hurt I've gotten before. I'm working on it, and some days it's easier than others, but often I fail. One of the remedies that's worked best, though, is developing my own life and cultivating  myself into the woman I want to be. Finding myself has been an immeasurable help in combating this feeling that I need to imagine stronger and deeper connections with other people, especially men. It helps me to respect myself as a woman worthy of the same true love that every other woman is worthy of, and through that, it helps me to respect my brothers more as men who are the same path, rather than objects to fulfill my emotional fantasies.

However, though I do definitely want to perfect the art of remaining detached enough to keep my emotions from running wild with me, I also want to be able to hold onto the kind of hope for love that Taylor sings about so often. I'm beginning to see that the older I get, and the more important relationships seem to become, that line between the two gets fairly thin. It's somewhat comforting to know that other women struggle with being emotionally chaste, and that my friends and I can encourage each other to be chaste, but also to have hope that one day we'll get the kind of warm fuzzies Taylor Swift goes on about so often.

So, ladies, would you be willing to share whether or not you struggle with this, too? Don't feel obligated to share anything specific, but I'm curious to hear the experiences of other women.