Last week I wote about joy, and the things I’m prone to losing my joy over (mainly insecurities that are relatively common - read it here). The week before I wrote about getting sober. In that letter, I framed it around the idea of knowing yourself, and knowing how you want to present yourself to the world. I wrote about trying to manage the way I’m perceived partially through my style and the way I dress. And that’s what I’ve been thinking about. Control and image.
As well as I’ve been doing in the program I’m in, as much progress as I feel I’ve made, I also have an urge to set my life on fire. Or buzz my hair off, or move back to New York, or pick a fight with my husband. Things are so hunky dory that I have this very unhealthy urge to throwing a wrench in it. I’m finding I’m coming to a point where I really truly love myself, but I don’t really want to hang out with myself. It gets old eating salmon and vegetables all the time, right? Sometimes you want a bag of Doritos and a Yoohoo.
I miss my vices, I miss a gentle dose of mess. I wanted to bleach my eyebrows or something, but instead I got an silly manicure, and it did help soothe some of that itchy restlessness. At thirty eight years old I still feeling like I’m trying to find myself, still trying to define my identity, still trying on personas and seeing what sticks, and likely this searching never stops. Hopefully. Hopefully life is one long process of self-discovery, because healing and then sticking with the same version of me for life feels like a death sentence.
For the last six-ish years (since my son was born) I’ve been very intentionally moving into a good taste world. Simple, clean, minimal, not showy, not glittery, not bright or sparkly, just…elegant. Subdued. And in my core, honestly, I am a glitter bomb. I am the floor of the Drag Race workroom at the end of a runway. In my youth I was all experimentation and missed marks, and as I’m getting older I’m like….womp womp. I’ve become a more or less one note wonder, adhering to a strict set of aesthetic guidelines as laid forth by M’Lady Olsens. And I do love The Row, but man, without your own wiggleworm it gets a little…prescriptive. I know I’ve written about this before, and I spend an INORDINATE amount of time thinking about my identity vis-à-vis my style, but I don’t know! WHERE IS THE GOO!
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