I have had this conversation before with many women. People compliment us when we wear make up. And when we don't people tell us we look tired, or ask if we are ok. Some interaction with a negative response.
When my hair is brightly colored people tell me they like my hair often. It is always brightly colored now. It has been every variation of the color spectrum of light and dark of shades and tones and any day now every combination of every color variation. I like it that way. It changes with my mood.
When I fear severely like when I had to leave my mother's salon. The salon I grew up in since I was 4. I had one step next to buzzed, severely short hair, I liked it, it was easy to do. I always dried it, it took two minutes. And in the weeks before I left I died it hot pink.
I kept it very short for some time. Having odd asymmetrical haircuts is hard for me with the OCD. I'm home a lot. I was home more than usual last winter. With my son. With my dad. I needed to be outside my comfort zone and yet I was home with incense and candles and meditation and musical instruments and video games and netflix as distractions.
I watched all of Lost in a month last year which seemed insane and childish. Everyone said it was life changing and epic when it was on. It was vague and intentionally manipulating. You can tell more when it is watched without commercials or having to stop when the episode is over. T.V. designed for the adrenaline rush. Designed for the anticipation.
Lost seemed so fake next to the horrors real life has witnessed in the wake of the hurricane. Hurricane Sandy for those people not near the shores of the east coast and don't drive there for Christmas dinner where you can't see because there aren't enough street lights fixed yet and there are ditches dug across many roads so you have to k turn a lot even though you're in a place where everything should look familiar and nothing does. Real life problems are so much more complex than Hollywood makes them. After all these years they still can't top the vibrancy of the human imagination spontaneously forming mental pictures from plain text words.
I hope this new year brings a flood of emotion and with that I can talk about all that has happened this year. When Grandma Jackie died in January I cut my now 3 month grown hair again. I died it the deepest blues. So many blues like the ocean I couldn't go see because it was still filled with debris. When I finally went to the spot that is sacred to me. The spot where I go to see forever. It looked similar. It still said Funtown on the sign on the cabin even though everything else was gone. But all the sand on the white beach was new. It was cold and drizzling in July. The wind whipped me on the boardwalk in Seaside Park as I looked out on how much was gone but also at how much was still there. A month later all those boards and the cabin burned to the ground.
This winter you can see that this summer was all for show. All the Progress made at The Jersey Shore Was for the commercial success of Chris Christie's re-election and this winter proved it. Things are not much better or maybe even worse for the victims of the storm. Although we all have good holidays because we appreciate even the little things more. Electricity for instance. Warm socks. Someone to be with who you love whether or not you're not blood related.
Family comes in all shapes and sizes and there is no right way to be a family. As long as you have love and compassion for the people you connect with in life. And hopefully you can at least respect those you don't, enough to leave them alone, and not be a catalyst for pain in anyone's life.
My goal is to be a positive influence in peoples life. And not let their judgements and insecurities effect my happiness because I no longer want to live in fear and pain. In fact I flat out refuse. As mad as that makes some people, I say good! Mad is the first step. Passion for something. Then you start to question how to fix what you're mad about. And you realize you can't fix the world's problems through anger and fear because they are bread in anger and fear. Love a lot of times takes stepping out of your comfort zone. It takes making sacrifices or compromises. Love requires that you consider someone else's feelings as important as your own when making your big life decisions.
My hair is starting to grow in. The roots come in and I lighten them and make them pink. The blue can't be entirely bleached out at this point because the ends of my hair have been blue for over a year. I don't want to cut myself off from the year that I've had entirely. No matter how painful it has been. But every time I dye my hair, it gets a little more pink.
For this Christmas it was very light blonde with brown roots and baby pink and baby blue. It feels faded to me. I feel faded when my hair is. And it is likely true that if I haven't even had 2 hours to myself to paint my own head and play around with mirrors listening to music I probably am pretty fucking tired and faded. But people tell me it looks nice when I wear make up and style my hair.
No matter the length or color, if I conform to social beauty norms of makeup, blow dryers, and flat irons I get compliments. But I find them always to be double sided, every time someone tells me my hair looks good because I took a half an hour to fuck with it, it makes me feel like it doesn't look good when I don't. Same with make up, all women know they get comcompliments on their skin and beauty with make up on. With out it you're demoted from goddess who is incapable of opening doors for herself to a human just like errbody else. Not to mention that similar or the same people will say things like, what happened to your hair, if I don't do it and it looks flat and wiley as straight hair often does.
I don't think girls with curly hair should iron it straight. I don't think they should blow dry their hair straight for so many years it's always a semi straight frizz from heat damage without more leave in conditioner spray and a flat iron. We shouldn't wash our hair everyday. We need oils in our hair. We shouldn't put cream on our face. No one makes sure all the ingredients are safe.
My skin looks like porcelain with makeup on. I can contour and blend like no other. Flawlessness is my gig. The OCD makes me very good at my job. I can spot a symmetrical flaw from a mile away.
People are not symmetrical, people are not flawed. People are all unique. Every single one of us, even genetically identical twins raised in the same household by the same parents with the same siblings. Everyone is the same material component, the same elements, the same energies. We all view this experience from a new perspective. We all contribute just by being here. The standards of what women should be are outrageous and unacceptable.
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