My Heart

There is a story I wrote-- a short version of it-- some time ago.  Sometimes I can write a story and know when it is done.  This one has never been done, but is constantly changing and evolving, on paper and in my mind.  I believe this story shows my heart like none of the other stories I've written; but it keeps changing because I have changed.  It is a story that anyone who knows me, or used to know me, would probably be astonished to read.
Let me explain that last sentence, because it shows a lot about who I am, and who I used to be.  This is who I used to be: a girl, and ashamed of it.  A very shy, quiet, reclusive girl, who on one hand craved relationships and on the other, felt she didn't need them.  A girl with carefully hidden girlish tendencies under a boyish exterior.  I was the girl who talked sports, wielded a knife, climbed trees-- in short, tried to keep up with the boys so they would consider her their equal-- because I felt it was shameful to be "weaker" just because I was a girl.
How I have changed!
I have come to look upon women not as the "weaker" sex, but as people who have different strengths.  Who I am now: very much a girl, and glad to be so (except I could do without some of my mood swings.)  I love flowers, pretty clothes, and even an occasional love story.  (I once would have died rather than admit that.)  I love the beauty and the emotions and the depth and the strength to be found in a woman's character.  God has also been showing me the value of relationships, and how much I need them.
And so I wrote this story-- and I am still trying to write it because it just isn't quite right yet.  I tried to paint the beauty and the depth that can be found in a woman's character.  I revealed a longing to go deeper that I've always had and still have.   I expressed my love of nature and how I have found God in nature.  I wrote a love story into it, a story of discovery, of wanting to be a better person for the one you fell in love with.  A story of sacrifice, of loss, or grieving.  Examining what is important in life.  All of these things are part of my story.
I had it work-shopped in one of my creative writing classes, and the reactions mixed.  Some said the setting was unrealistic (I basically copied the setting I grew up in); some said the characters were unrealistic (I instilled in them many of the values that I believe.)  Many said the narrator painted the girl in the story as "too perfect."  I tried to remedy that, then I realized, this story is told about a girl by the man who is in love with her.  No, she is not perfect.  But I truly believe this is how he saw her.
In short, many saw the structure of the story, but few understood my heart speaking through it.  I am not trying to say the story is perfect, or even that it is totally realistic.  But I truly do believe it expresses some of the deep things of my heart like nothing else I've written.
For all these reasons, I continue working on this story, and for all these reasons, I am both excited and nervous to let it go.