(I’ve been wanting to write about this for weeks. I wrote a little something on Flickr, and I’m going to post those words here until I’m able to express myself on this issue in the way that I want, without having an emotional breakdown.)
the scale. the measuring tape.
i’ve long let the numbers on those things dictate my value as a human being.
when the numbers go up, i hate myself. i feel worthless, i feel like i have no voice. i feel repulsive.
right now the numbers are up. and i am avoiding people, avoiding shopping for clothes. unable to enjoy the simple things in my life.
i think of my kids. of my daughter. this has to stop. now.
i hate that scale. and yet? i hold onto it for dear life. it’s all i’ve ever known. i’ve never known living without it. i might as well wear it around my neck all day long because it goes with me whever i go.
i need to rid my life of it. it’s killing me. it’s robbing me of joy.
i need to let it go, but i don’t know how.
i want to be free. free to live. free to love. free to be who i am regardless of the numbers. regardless of the inches.
i just don’t know how.
Bronzes have more fun
There was a time in my life where I decided “Hey! I think I want blonde hair!”
When I told my stylist, she looked at me funny and said it would be a good idea to add blondISH highlights and gradually lighten it. I wasn’t having that, I was like “highlights? Hell naw. BLEACH IT BLONDE. NOW!”
She let it be known that she was against this going all blonde thing and I let it be known that I didn’t care because I wanted to be blonde.
A few hours of processing later, I was a Blonde.
I immediately drove to my sister’s house to show her and she was all “THAT LOOKS HORRIBLE!” Her main issue with that it wasn’t really blonde, but kinda orange, much like the color of my skin, which meant that my skin and hair all kind of blended together making me look like a giant stick o’ bronzer.
My sister has an incredibly awesome sense of style and I trust and value her opinion when it comes to matters of hair/fashion. But, I didn’t want to believe her about this because I wanted to be a freakin’ blonde.
Later that day, when I was outside watering the grass, my neighbor -who happened to be the ceraaziest, most hilarious person I’ve ever had the pleasure of living next door to- drove by and looked at me in a way that led me to believe she did NOT like The Blonde.
She walked over and in her crazy way of talking said “What the fuck did you do to your hair? Your hair matches your skin and you look all one color and it’s creeping me out, woman.”
Even though two people had just given me not so positive feedback about The Blonde, I didn’t want to believe it. I wanted to believe that my hair looked great and that “Blonde was my color.”
Why? I do not know. But, looking at a bunch of old pictures that I found last night, I realize just HOW RIGHT they were and how BAD IT LOOKED (and these pictures were AFTER I agreed to let my stylist “weave in a little brown”.) and how desperately I wanted to believe that I could pull of blonde hair.
“Go Carrot. It’s your birthday. We’re gonna party like it’s your birthday”.
It’s like a soap opera! About hair! Only, not really anything like that at all!
So, um, The Haircut.
Or should I say The “Haircut”?
I’m pretty sure that The Do that I’m sporting qualifies as “Chickening out”.
Yes, I chickened out. But! I kinda blame my stylist because she was all “Long hair is SO hot right now. It hasn’t been this ‘in’ in years.”
That was all I needed to hear. I was all “Really? It’s in? Sweet! Just give me some funkay layers!”
Ummmm…
Before:
After:
So yeah, you can see that it’s been cut, and you can see that there are layers, but not so sure that they’re “funky” and also? Not quite sure what to do with it. It’s all thin and frizzy and AHHHHHHH.
(Is that a before cut picture or after cut picture? I do not know. I can not tell!)
Uh. The layers. Seriously, What do I do with them?
Oh! I know! Put them in pigtails! Which is SO TOTALLY DIFFERENT than what I was doing before I got it cut!
Yeah.
And also?
Shit.
And quite possibly?
Hate.
Don’t hate me because I draw pretty houses.
Do you know what I love?
Starbucks? KFC bisquits with honey? THE OFFICE?
No! I mean, yes, of course! But, also? I love that I can write a post in which I act all dramatic and SCARED about getting my hair cut (you’re getting A hair cut? WHICH ONE? Isn’t that hilarious? That’s a joke PigHunter loves to say EVERYTIME that I say I’m getting a haircut. Hardy Har Har.) and people actually become emotionally invested on the plight of my hair and check back to see if I’ve had it done and they cheer me on and tell me to “JUST DO EEEEEEEEET!”
God. I love that so much.
Do you know what I do NOT love?
California!
Specifically the area in California in which I live and must drive because OH MY GOD! THE MORNING TRAFFIC.
You see, the traffic is so horrific in this stupid ass wanna be city which is nothing more than track homes, starbucks and Target shopping centers, that I make my children take the bus to school. Because? The traffic is so bad and the drivers are such assholes, that halfway to the school, I’m calmly sticking my head out the window,lovingly asking “WTF, MAN, SERIOUSLY, W.T.F?” and secretly wishing I had a baseball bat in my car to um, smash peoples “windshields.”
This morning? The boys missed the bus and SWEET MOTHER OF BOBS. By the time we got to the 2nd signal, Ethan was all “You’re going to fight someone today, aren’t you mom?”
It’s frustrating because it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Seriously, we live so close to both schools and their both in peaceful, residential neighborhoods.
Look! I painted a little (but totally precious) picture for you! (Try not to let my amazing paint skills distract you from the point, ok?)
x-our house
1-ethan’s school
2-andrew’s school
3-the van
How hard could that drive be? Right? Seriously, down the street to Andrew’s school, back up the street to Ethan’s school. (Even though Ethan’s is closer, Andrew has to go first, because his starts FIVE MINUTES EARLIER than Ethan’s. AH!) So easy!
But dudes. Everyone wants to live here! And it’s crowded and there’s a traffic light every 2 feet and everyone drives a Hummer and no one knows how to drive correctly, and everything thinks they are “entitled” to cut you off and AAAHHHHHH. KILL. PUNCH. SLICE.
I used to love living here. Beautiful beaches 45 minutes away. Majestic mountains, with skiing and lakes less than an hour away. Dodger Stadium, Angel stadium (BOO. ANGELS SUCK! But still!) LAKER GAMES! The Price is Right studios! Beautiful weather!
But now? Those things are harder to appreciate because of all of the CRAP that comes along with it.
Outrageous home prices (It’ll cost you $500,000 for a small, ugly, old house in this here shitty ‘hood), traffic, smog, POTHOLES!, traffic, DID I MENTION TRAFFIC? Because, traffic.
Were it not for the fact that all of my family lives here, I would move to a different state in a heartbeat.
But? I am a wimp who does not want to be without my family (and, who, more importantly, is most likely going to chicken out with the whole “cutting of the hair” thing) and so we will continue to live here and be frustrated with The Traffic and the unaffordable housing for the rest of our lives.
The things we do for the love of family. (And for the fear of not being able to make friends in a new state and of my children being the ONLY kids with a Mexican last name. Because, you know, that’s another plus of living in SoCal, The Mexicans. We live here.)
Sweet Kathy Lee Gifford, it’s just hair.
I’ve become completely and totally attached to my long hair.
It’s long, thinned out, frizzy and I wear it up in a ponytail everyday. It’s unattractive and boring and yet? I can’t bring myself to cut it.
I made an appointment for Tuesday to chop it all off, or at least a great deal of it, but I can already feel myself wanting to puke at the thought of seeing all of the hair on the floor.
I think it’s giving me some strange sense of security. Like having all of this hair covers up the fact that I still have more weight to lose.
My brain. It tells me crazy things.
I feel like it’s time to let it go and to do something pretty and fun with it, but I’m not sure if I’ll be strong enough to go through with it on Tuesday.
If I do, I’m pretty sure that I’m going with something like this…
But the way I’m shaking just thinking about this whole “cutting thing” I’m pretty sure I’ll come back with “just a trim.” (a professional trim.)
Love Thursday : My little teacher
Although my daughter is two years old, there are still moments in which I am overwhelmed by the reality that I actually have a daughter.
Watching her walk around topless, covered in Elmo band aids and wearing a pink tutu this afternoon was one of those moments.
I watch her prance around in her tutu, shoeless, shirtless, messy hair and I wonder what it must feel like to be so carefree, so innocent, so completely free to be who she is.
And I start to cry. Because I know that life isn’t always going to be like this for her. She’ll go through hard times, people will hurt her. She’ll experience pain. I know that one day, she’ll become aware of her body and how it compares to the bodies of other girls. Maybe she’ll hate it, just like I did, like I still do. I hope that she doesn’t, I hope that I can teach her from my mistakes, that I can be honest with her about my experience and that from me, she’ll learn that it’s a waste of time, energy and of your life to hate your body. I will teach her to love herself, to be proud of herself, to take care of her body and always be kind to it. To never waste a second hating it, for it is the vehicle in which she can do and accomplish whatever it is that she so desires in her life. The one and only life that she’ll ever have.
As I watched my precious daughter twirling around in her pink tutu,
I wished someone had taught me those things when I was growing up. I wished that someone had sat me down when I was starving myself and told me that I didn’t need to do that because I was beautiful the way that I was. I wish my mother would have told me that I mattered too much to the world to inflict abuse upon myself.
In that moment I realized that the words that I needed to hear my entire life had just been spoken to me through my beautiful daughter.
And in that moment, I realized, although I am her mother and it is my job to teach her about life, she is my teacher as well.
“Love yourself mom, because a little bit of you lives in me.”
And I used to say that I didn’t want a girl. God, I had no idea what I was missing without her in my life.
Cut me? Cut YOU.
Whenever I watch the video of my first baby being born, I cringe a little inside when I see my husband breathing through the contractions with me because on that very important day in our lives? He was sporting a Haircut given by me.
My “problem” (and yes, it’s a problem) with “thinking I can cut hair” started when I was a young girl and curious to see how I would look with bangs. That set off a chain of events in which I would end up crying, or making someone else cry because I thought it was a good idea to “give ’em a little trim.”
Everytime I’d come home from getting a hair cut, I’d find something wrong with it and try to fix it myself. I can’t count how many times my husband came home to find me in the bathroom crying and saying things like “OMG. CAN YOU PLEASE SHAVE MY NECK BECAUSE I MESSED UP AND WENT A LITTLE TOO SHORT.”
I went through a phase where I truly believed I could cut my husband’s hair “just as good, IF NOT BETTER” than the barber and BONUS! I could save us an entire $8 every month in doing so!
Because my husband is precious and loves me,( not because I had went and bought an entire “hair cutting kit” complete with clippers, scissors and combs! at Costco) he decided to go ahead and let me cut his hair.
I was very pregnant with Andrew at the time and I remember the first time I cut his hair VERY WELL. I remember thinking “Seriously, how hard could this be?” But as soon as I started buzzing off the sides of his hair, I was like “This shit is HARD” and also “WHOOPS!”
The thing about cutting hair is that when you go too far on one side, you have to even that shit out on the other and um, let’s just say by the time I was done “evening shit out” he had pretty much NO hair left on the side and a big puff of hair on the top. I tried desperately to blend the sides and the top, but the only way that was going to happen is if I shaved it all off.
And let’s not even talk about the sideburns. (Or should I say the “lack of sideburns” by the time I was finished.)
I remember when we sat down to watch the video of the birth of our son together for the first time. Aside from the part where I was all “OMG. I think I’m pooping” as the nurse was all “No you’re not” while WIPING MY ASS, the most humiliating moment for me was watching my poor, supportive husband helping me through the labor with a totally jacked up up hair cut. I don’t even think he realised how bad it was until he saw it on tape. He was like “WOMEN, YOU WILL NEVER CUT MY HAIR AGAIN.”
And I agreed because, holy shit, you should have seen it.
One would have thought that my days of giving other people haircuts were over, but one would be wrong in thinking that. One day, a friend who always tries to make me feel like a bad mother was all “I cut my boys hair because why would I pay someone else to do something so easy?” I went all “Oprah” in my agreement with her “Girrrrrrrrrrrrl, I know, right?”
The next day, I went and bought a new haircutting kit (at Costco!) and announced that “from now on, I’LL be cutting your hair!”
That didn’t last too long because OH MY GOD, my kids hated me cutting their hair with a passion.
I had no decent place to cut their hair, so we would have to take kitchen chairs out back. And the cuts would take HOURS and those hours were filled with crying, screaming, tantrums, threats and sometimes? Bleeding.
The kids: Wah. Cry. Bitch. Moan. MOM! this is taking forever.
Me: I bet you never complain to the barber about how long it takes.
The kids: Yeah, because the barber doesn’t take 3 HOURS.
The kids: OUCH! THAT HURT! YOU’RE HURTING ME!
Me: I bet you never whine about that to the barber.
The kids: Because the barber doesn’t CUT THE TOPS OF OUR EARS OFF.
It was horrible. For them. For me. For the neighbors.
I swore that I’d never take a pair of scissors to a head of hair ever again for as long as I lived.
I meant it, I really and truly did. But then? One time? I was giving my dog a bath and I decided to give him “a little trim” and um, well, haha! OOPS. (I’m telling you, that “evening shit out” gets me EVERYTIME.)
Why am I talking about my problem with “cutting hair” again?
Perhaps, because I’ve done it again?
Only, this time to my poor, helpless 2 year old daughter?
I thought “cutting her hair will be easy! Just cut straight across the bottom! No problemo!”
I could actually close my eyes and see myself doing it and doing it perfectly. Obviously, I forgot that a) I was dealing with a child who can not sit still for more than .6 seconds at a time. b)a child who throws herself back when she gets pissed c)That I don’t have the proper hair cutting scissors and haha sewing scissors do NOT work d)I CAN NOT CUT HAIR.
Dr.Phil always says “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior” and in “the past” I’ve jacked A LOT OF PEOPLES HAIR THE FUCK UP. So, honestly, what was I thinking?
It doesn’t look too bad in that picture, but trust me, it’s totally uneven and way shorter than I intended. I have to take her tomorrow to get it fixed, which means it will be even SHORTER and oh man, PigHunter is PISSED.
I don’t blame him, I shouldn’t have picked those scissors up. I mean, yeah, they were sitting there calling to me “you know you want to do it. Just do eeeet” But, I should have been strong, given them The Fingah and walked away.
Because, no one should ever have to suffer Jacked Up Hair because of my inability to STEP AWAY FROM THE SCISSORS ever again.
The greatest of these is love
I spend a great deal of time and energy complaining and crying about things that I don’t have in my life.
A house. Extra money. A thin, toned body. Perky boobs. a nice camera. Etc.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting a house to call my own. There’s nothing wrong with wishing for extra money to take my children on vacations and to buy a nice camera with. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get in shape and be thin.
However, when wanting and wishing for those things consumes my time, my thoughts and robs me of joy, something is wrong.
Especially when what I do have is worth so much more than what money can buy.
Laughter.
Joy.
Closeness.
Bonds that can’t be broken.
(Unlike the wind that surely broke as this picture was taken.)
But most of all, Love.
(Brought to you by Love Thursday.)
The Dance of Dirty.
On Wednesday night, whilst doing the aerobic dirty dance, The Aerobic Dance Instructor gave me the ultimate compliment.
“So perfect, Y. I must take picture because it’s so perfect.”
I believed her when she said it and left the class swollen with pride and cockiness. I came home and told Tony “I think my instructor REALLY loves having me in her class, because I keep up with her and know all the moves.”
Ummm…
After watching myself do The Dirty Dance on video, I’m PRETTY DAMN SURE that her compliment wasn’t sincere and that she was secretly mocking me, knowing that compliments only encourage me to “try even harder” and “take the dance even more seriously than I already do, which TRUST ME, is VERY seriously.”
I wish I could tell you that “Haha, I just have fun with it and don’t take it seriously at all.” But, the faces that I make whilst spanking the air would prove that to be A LIE.
LIIIIIEEEEEEESSSSS.
(There may be a subliminal message hidden somewhere in the video and that subliminal message may very well be “Look! I wasn’t lying when I said that I gained 10 pounds back, except it was actually TWELVE POUNDS, but hey, I’ve lost 5 of the twelve, thank you Aerobic Dancing.)
worth a thousand words
This is not the greatest picture I’ve ever taken. The lighting is bad, there isn’t any beautiful scenery. Most people wouldn’t even give it a second look, I’m sure. And yet to me? It’s probably one of the most beautiful pictures of my family that I’ve ever seen.
I love it. Love. Love. Love. I love it for so many reasons.
The look on Ethan’s face. I’ve seen that look many times. That annoyed, disapproving look. I can only imagine that as I was snapping the shot, he was saying something like “MOM! Are you kidding me? Another picture? Who takes pictures in an elevator anyway? That’s so dumb.” And look at his hair. He has the “Eddie Munster” look going on. He used to do that shit on purpose. He got sick of “fighting” the widows peek and much to my dismay, made a decision to embrace it, to become one with it, to let the peek fall where it may. Oh, how I love that kid.
Andrew. My first baby. This picture was taken before he went “All Pubescent**” on me. He still had the chunky face, the nervous habit of playing with his hands and the “I LOVE SPENDING TIME WITH MY FAMILY SO DANG MUCH” smile on his face. He still loves spending time with his family, he’s just too cool to let it show as freely. You know how teenagers are, all growing hair in places where the sun don’t shine, thinking their too cool for school. Or for bowling with their parents, or for shouting “I love you” back to their mom when she yells it as she drops them off in front of junior high school.
(Funny story about that. It just hit me last night as we were eating dinner that my son, my first baby, will be going to HIGH SCHOOL NEXT YEAR. I shouted out “Oh my God! You’re in EIGHT GRADE, which means, you’re going to be a freshman in high school next year. NO! NO! That can’t be true… how is that possible?!” To which my son rolled his eyes and said “Oh great, here comes the Water Works.” And man, was he right. I couldn’t stop crying and CRAP! I’m crying again now.)
I do believe that the sweetest thing captured in this photo is the love captured between my daughter and her daddy. It reminds me of something that I wrote when she was an infant.
You are looking at the greatest joy in my life right now.
My husband holding our daughter.
The way she smiles at him. The way she grabs his neck and pulls herself close to him. The way she giggles when he looks at her. The way she just loves him and the way he loves her right back times 1000.
There are no words to describe the happiness and fufillment I feel when I watch them together.
We’ll see how true that is when she’s 15 and I tell her “No!” and she’s all “DADDY SAID I COULD… SO SCREW YOU!”
But until that fine day, I will enjoy watching the two of them together, her totally owning him and him loving every minute of it.
Not a day goes by that my husband doesn’t say “She’s the sunshine of my life, Y.” Not a day goes by that she doesn’t squeel for joy when she sees his car coming up the street after a long day of work. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t make him, Mr.I’mTooToughToCry, tear up from her sweetness. They have a special bond and being able to see it so clearly in this picture is the most beautiful thing to me.
Every night, when we lay in bed, my husband thanks me for my children and I thank him for being such an amazing father and sometimes we cry because we know that we are incredibly blessed to have those 3 beautiful human beings in our life.
I never thought when I took that picture on that hot day in September that one day, on a day that I needed it most, it would remind me of what matters the most.
Don’t let the balance in my checking account fool you. I’m rich, people. I’m so filthy rich.
[/The Cheese&trade]
(brought to you by Love Thursday.)
**More on THAT later, because, pooberty is gross.