Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Wanting to look good vs. Vanity....

As I grow up and try to fully connect with myself and lose the extra weight I've notice that my appearance is something that is lacking and while with some right outfits and good hair days and a couple swipes of makeup I can feel pretty good I still don't feel quite comfortable in the skin I was born in.


Most of my life I could take it or leave it, I remember as all little girls I use to play with my moms makeup growing up and at times she would give me stuff she didn't want to use but always in the hands of her or my father to watch me with when I asked to use it. It was all for play, I out grew it when I think the more I tried  out stuff that was girly the more it seemed I was converting to what the girls, I at least deem popular  in Elementary school were doing/acting/"into". I was scared that it seemed like I was doing more things to fit in than just because I liked them. Plus when I figured that was how it worked and tired to get into their cliche and started to become so embarrassed of myself and the things I did, well more of the things I asked them to help me do (lose weight mostly, run me like gym class at recess) just to be like them. I mean for Christ's Sake one of the girls in the group said to be part of their group to be their friends we all had to be wearing bras, this was fourth/fifth grade folks.

As I decided to just be myself and be me my distance from them came from natural course though we still talked in class and were friendly enough. It was soon after I started to go through my tomboy phase, and I'll admit it back than I wouldn't bath unless I felt I needed it. Gross, but hey I was a kid and I was in the whole I wanted to be a boy I want to be manly I guess mind frame and that's how I saw it was to be in my way of being at the time. I don't know if my want to be a tomboy came from my need or fear of trying to get as far away from the whole situation above or not but it did some how in a strange way strike a cord with me when it comes to a lot of things girly.

I've gone back and forth on the issues of all things girly related since I can remember. I also remember the first day of my period even when we went to the store after school I just had to get nail polish and some girly magazine because hey if I was gonna be a "girl" for real now and soon a women I needed to do this stuff right? I'm thinking that's what I thought, I'm not at all sure. I think I also ended up using that nail polish to use as painted on clothes for a barbie I had just recently cut off all her hair.  As time has went as I grew up, I fought the whole bra thing I wore sports bras for the longest time because I just couldn't get use to the underwire for the life of me. But its my saving grace in the boob department now, believe me. I went through the whole I want to wear make up I don't want to wear makeup. Than the whole CRAP I don't know how to do makeup, having a friend of a friend do a make over which was really wash my hair and dry it and do spotty foundation on my face that wasn't even my color to begin with.

I remember walking home that day thinking, this is what all the guys want? We do this for them? Why? And in my 12-13 year old mind I said, Screw it. I ain't wearing it, I'm not gonna try and some guy will come around and if he likes me for that than he's the one. Which in theory is smart for that age, but also kinda totally wrong because in that instant I think I gave up. I gave up caring I gave up because I wanted someone to like me for me, but I was so afraid of being labeled as something else that I started to make myself into pretty much a blank canvas unless talking with certain people. I've learnt lots about broad topics and things because of this, which is cool but any event.

 I didn't want to be vain, I didn't want to be anything but me. But I also shut down any thing I found interesting that either was too out there for people to accept of me for who I thought they thought I was for someone who didn't care of such things. Someone who was so above the system and her own person that I didn't want to be this hypocrite of a person doing something totally not me. That when I acted myself at times I did it anyways because your true personality shows despite the clothes you wear and the color of your hair and all the above.

I have done so much protective damage control against the outside world that I judge myself based on how I think others might see me most of the time than how I see myself, so I can't get hurt. That suppressed a lot when I do that and in turn I turned to food and at my lowest I've turn to sleeping the days away so I'll  only have to deal with point whatever hours of myself and the world. I know it sounds like I'm depressed, but I'm not, I'm just scared. Just trying to be myself in a world so full of what you should do and be's for every age group your in or gender your are.

Its hard to figure yourself out and just be a kid at the same time, but it also is hard to find a life direction when your still stuck back there trying to grow up and become yourself  that in some way you've forgot how cause you've hid from the things you've wanted to try and suppressed the want to do this or wear that or whatever that your scared to admit to the things in case of the judgement you spent your life trying to block yourself from.  But in the end the only one truly judging you that matters when you fall asleep at night is you.

Now I'm just trying to cope with letting myself be, but also not come across as vain, but also that I still care about how I look and how I feel, because you can't love anyone else if you can't first love yourself. If anything of that makes sense at all.

No comments:

Post a Comment