have you ever looked at your reflection and burst into tears?
i'm working from home today: no makeup, no masks, just me in raggedy-ass clothes, in all my non-primped-out glory. earlier i looked at candid photos of myself on Facebook; also, i went to an artist's website, a photographer that takes nude erotic bondage pictures of women where light replaces leather, chains and ropes. (note: the only reason i went to his site was because he lives in the same art community complex as some dear friends of mine, and they've mentioned him a few times in the past two weekends. i never got around to stopping by his studio, and now i know why: my psyche was probably trying to protect me).
my point is that these factors--and maybe others that i'm not yet aware of--are what contributed to this feeling of disgust with my appearance.
when will this end? will i always have these moments of terror and horror as i look at myself in the mirror? will i always feel panic at how much cellulite i've gained or how much muscle definition i've lost in my abs? why--with all the positive things people say about me and my work--do i still feel so crippled by body dissatisfaction?
to my eyes, my photos show a girl-woman with a protective layer around her, making her heavy and elephantine. when i was younger, i always thought of my body as a skin that i wanted to shed in order to feel light and free. when i see these touched-up photos of women who are young and smooth and blemish-free, i know that this depictions are not real, that the men who snap these shots think of women as cars or diamond rings, sparkly and sleek and polished and hinting not one bit at the soft, squishy, dimpled messiness of real human bodies.
hanging out with my friends all this weekend, women who are strong and fragile and REAL, probably lulled me into a false sense of security. enter Monday and The World As It Is, or The World As We Have Been Taught To See It: yoga ads with pictures of hard-bodied women in pretzel poses, models who are "edgy" with short, spiky hair and black eyeliner who look all of 16 years old, white, upper-class PhDs who talk about healing but who have never been broken themselves, who have never been told, again and again, since the single-digit years, "you are not good enough," "you are ugly," "you are shameful," "you are unsightly." i want to be back in that safe, warm, easy space where everyone is loved for being alive and being human...where strangers are welcome and friends are like family (the family that you really, really like). if that space could expand and occupy the entire world, a giant heartspace where we could all just relax and breathe and let our talents and gifts and skills and knowledge shine out...
i suppose i must first create that space inside my own heartspace. unfortunately, some days it feels like a Sisyphean task: like building and building and building and rebuilding a house on mountains of mud.
i'm working from home today: no makeup, no masks, just me in raggedy-ass clothes, in all my non-primped-out glory. earlier i looked at candid photos of myself on Facebook; also, i went to an artist's website, a photographer that takes nude erotic bondage pictures of women where light replaces leather, chains and ropes. (note: the only reason i went to his site was because he lives in the same art community complex as some dear friends of mine, and they've mentioned him a few times in the past two weekends. i never got around to stopping by his studio, and now i know why: my psyche was probably trying to protect me).
my point is that these factors--and maybe others that i'm not yet aware of--are what contributed to this feeling of disgust with my appearance.
when will this end? will i always have these moments of terror and horror as i look at myself in the mirror? will i always feel panic at how much cellulite i've gained or how much muscle definition i've lost in my abs? why--with all the positive things people say about me and my work--do i still feel so crippled by body dissatisfaction?
to my eyes, my photos show a girl-woman with a protective layer around her, making her heavy and elephantine. when i was younger, i always thought of my body as a skin that i wanted to shed in order to feel light and free. when i see these touched-up photos of women who are young and smooth and blemish-free, i know that this depictions are not real, that the men who snap these shots think of women as cars or diamond rings, sparkly and sleek and polished and hinting not one bit at the soft, squishy, dimpled messiness of real human bodies.
hanging out with my friends all this weekend, women who are strong and fragile and REAL, probably lulled me into a false sense of security. enter Monday and The World As It Is, or The World As We Have Been Taught To See It: yoga ads with pictures of hard-bodied women in pretzel poses, models who are "edgy" with short, spiky hair and black eyeliner who look all of 16 years old, white, upper-class PhDs who talk about healing but who have never been broken themselves, who have never been told, again and again, since the single-digit years, "you are not good enough," "you are ugly," "you are shameful," "you are unsightly." i want to be back in that safe, warm, easy space where everyone is loved for being alive and being human...where strangers are welcome and friends are like family (the family that you really, really like). if that space could expand and occupy the entire world, a giant heartspace where we could all just relax and breathe and let our talents and gifts and skills and knowledge shine out...
i suppose i must first create that space inside my own heartspace. unfortunately, some days it feels like a Sisyphean task: like building and building and building and rebuilding a house on mountains of mud.
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