She thinks if she travels to foreign lands- even if it is only by dating an ethnic man- that she can scale the high walls of the borders between what she was taught and who she hopes she is.
Having followed blindly her predestination programmed life she can’t resist taking squinted peeks through the tiny open slits of vision, hoping to find her true self.
“You are losing the faith!” her anxious mother warns as though to do so would be an inherent flaw, not a conscious choice.
But Mother’s own faith has been slipping through her hands for the past 30 years, and only that promised salvation can save her from the indiscretions that fill the non-rapturous void left-behind by mister Christian-right-wing-man.
Taught well by mother, father, and god, that men must be assessed in a purely logical fashion, “Agree on finances and childrearing and you will have happily ever.”
But she feels fake, and does not know how to peel the plastic wrap off her personality. You can see its bindings in the way her eyes implore you and how she clasps her hands on her lap by rote.
She is the pink peg in the Hasbro Game of Life car with guilt trip road blocks, detours and poorly folded directional maps. Spinning the wheel in search of tour guides: What should I read? What should I think?
But that only gives her new mind instructors. Perhaps instead of foreign languages and foreign lands, the verity lies in the realization that mother probably feels fake too.