Embracing the Ugly

Prologue:


Freedom has become like a drug to me. The more I taste it the more I want it, need it. FREEDOM!
I wonder what I will do next to get another rush of new-found freedom?


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Ugly:


I've seen the tired, sad puffy red eyes. no make-up. late night. early morning. All with NO hair or crap stubbly black hair looking like Jim Carey from Me, Myself and Irene. 


Choosing photos for fb or blackbikini I pick the flattering ones. I'm not brave enough to show reality. I like to talk about reality but to show it??


Yet I like to see my head. It feels like I can see me more. Even if it's not that way for other people and my daughter would prefer I had my hair back. I need to see me. I feel as though I freed myself when I cut off my hair and I think I am afraid to grow it back. I love how my head is just there! Nothing hiding its shape, its reality. My head exists. How strange that this knowledge means so much to me. That to see my head brings me some odd comfort!!! I think that within that comfort is a sense of defiance. It is bold and bare and real and definite. I cannot change it to suit other people, or even to suit myself. It is what it is. You can't change bald!

Of course, eventually it will grow but for now people (and I) have to face up to my hair and there isn't a damned thing anyone can do about it.

This may seem very melodramatic for HAIR! but I have been waiting for some emotional turmoil from the exercise and now I have been there. (It seems I just needed to wait for a round of pms to kick in and challenge the beauty myth!).

One friend had a strong reaction when they first saw me. They had not been prepared at all, hadn't seen any photos or read any status updates. They were shocked. Someone then asked them "But do you like it?"... I cringed, feeling the meaning of 'like'. As I thought about that moment later on I realised that it was/is not the point whether someone likes it or not. In fact I want at least some people to dislike it. I didn't shave my head to improve my attractiveness or to feel better about my exterior shell. I shaved my head in protest to all the bullshit that weighs people down. I did not/do not want to be held hostage to other peoples expectations.


Then there is the 'problem' of still being pretty. Like someone said to me today "You can't erase your face". I haven't always thought I was pretty but I have come to agree with my admirers; I have a pretty face. So no, I couldn't get truly into the world of ugly but I sure did try and I sure did feel ugly. And it was a struggle to see my own inner beauty but that was the point. I'd prefer to continue with this challenge for a while longer. I want to live without my hair and see where it takes me.


...



p.s. I promise not to mention my hair in my next blog post. Yes, I am also sick of reading/talking/thinking about my hair. Next post - SLUTwalk!!!


“Be excellent to each other.” -Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

I am (Part Two)

A bit of background as to why... and
some thoughts on being a walking freak.

I think I first considered it a possibility when I saw AngryBaker do it. Then of course there was Natalie Portman!

I had gone short before and loved the feeling. A friend posted an old photo of me on fb that I had not seen before and I loved the look (well, not the butterfly clips so much but the colour, the length).

But those were just ideas, encouragements. The real impetus?

I became aware recently that I have an innocent and vulnerable look. I speak with a smile and I have a mild lisp. I blush easily and am naturally (?) shy.  When I started going out again to pubs and clubs I soon became aware of just how vulnerable I appear. It was a little scary; as well as annoying. I know that I have moxy and I really wanted other people to see it, not just after getting to know me but straight away.

I also wanted to know how I would handle being out in the world with no hair. I have hidden behind a beautiful mass of curls for so long; have received endless comments as to its attractiveness. But I want people to see me. If I 'uglify' myself how would people respond to that? I don't want to be my hair or my breasts or my face or my ass!

People certainly see me now.  I have been getting very good service at stores etc. People fucking pay attention! Yes, people liked my long hair but they can't help but look at my mohawk and then (possibly out of guilt over staring) address me and attend to my requests straight away. I like that very much. I was starting to feel a bit invisible and now you can't help but see me. Awesome.

The sun is reallllly warm on my head. The wind is reallllly cold. The breeze on my head feels so refreshing. I feel so clean and new. For me it is an outward way of saying how I feel inside. Clean and new :)

I don't have to worry about anyone or anything messing up my hair; it simply cannot be messed up! I noticed this when I was hanging out the washing just now and my head brushed against some clothes and I backed away instinctively to protect 'the do' and then remembered that there was no 'do' to protect. Oh, and trying clothes on in the store, no need to worry about messing the hair up there either!

I have been reaching back to run my hands through my hair forgetting that it's all gone and this morning on the way to the shower I automatically reached back to take my hair thing out. As for showers, they are now a synch. No endless struggles to untangle the mass or even to just get all that hair actually saturated enough to wash!

Plus I am pretty sure that I am making up for all of that teenage rebellion that never came out. In many ways I feel like leaving my religion and accepting the unlikelihood that God exists was the moment I stopped being a child. Except that it wasn't a moment. It did take about a year. And now I see things that I am saying and doing and would describe myself a bit like an adolescent (some people would say it more strongly than that I'm sure!).

Most of all I wanted a tangible way to represent the shedding of so much emotional baggage over the last year or so. It was a way for me to physically feel a sense of release and freedom. This time not from the constraints of a religion but from my own emotional turmoil during the process of leaving. I feel that I have grown a lot in the last year. I feel ready to start reclaiming peace in my life and to begin letting go of the anger that I have felt towards the church.

...

Finally, it was like a dare I gave myself. Could I, would I fucking do it? Yes I fucking would (for explanation of sudden bursts of profanity please see the paragraph above).

I wonder if the world is secretly thinking that a 30-something year old going through adolescence is a little bit sad. So far I think that people are feeling positive about it. The instructor teaching Body Jam before my class today said my hair rocked and that everyone in the UK is doing it... So then, maybe I am just getting back to my pommy roots?!  

Hmm, today I was at a shopping centre ('Mall' in American) and had a moment where I thought - "fuck! everyone has hair!"

Then I got over it.