I began this blog as a way to redefine, or perhaps rediscover, the beauty of ME after losing all my hair to alopecia universalis over 5 years ago. Join me in the movement to see ourselves and our world through a lens not offered by our culture.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Getting there?

I feel a certain kind of freedom these days. I'm not working, I'm worn out from preparing for this overseas move, and I'm suffering from allergies. But I feel free from the need to look pretty and put-together when I leave the house! I seldom wear earrings, I throw on whatever clothes are not packed away, and I haven't replaced my black eyeliner pencil in a couple months. I've gone on errands bald and I never have shoes that match my outfit. This is the freedom I've aspired to for a long time.

But I've realized that not caring is not the same as being free. Just because I don't care about how I look doesn't mean I've accepted and come to love how I look. But I don't feel bad about myself, just the same. Maybe this situation, by which I mean being 75% packed for a move and having pressing issues to resolve before we go, is giving me the practice I need. It's actually not difficult to live my life without looking my best all the time. Fancy that.

Maybe I am growing into a certain kind of acceptance. Maybe, in this transition time, I'm realizing that I can live with, and enjoy, a lot less than I thought.

This could be just the stepping stone I need to move to a stage of love and preference for a more natural expression of who I am and how I have grown out of my culture's standards of beauty.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Are They Real?

Princess Cinderella and a young girl share a hug at Fantasy Faire
(https://disneyland.disney.go.com/entertainment/disneyland/fantasy-faire/)

A few weeks ago, my eight-year-old daughter was at a drama camp where the kids acted out the movie Frozen. At the end of the week, the "real" Elsa came! My daughter kept asking me if she was really real. What could I say? I kept asking her what she thought. When "Elsa" showed up, I could tell that my daughter was really looking closely and trying to reconcile the differences she saw between the movie character and this real life princess. She concluded that this was, indeed, the real Elsa who lives in Disneyland, with all the other real princesses. They don't look like their cartoon-selves, for some reason she can't quite articulate, but they are really real.

I'm not sure what to say to all this. I know kids need a little magic now and then, but where do I draw the line? So far, I've tried to hedge: "Yes, there are people in Disneyland who get to be princesses while they're there...for a little while...at least, they get to look like princesses..."

My daughter insists they're real. They live there. And now she is determined for us to move to Florida to be close to the princesses.

I admit I'm very inconsistent about on the princess issue. One day I'm belting out "Let It Go" in the car, one day I'm refusing to buy Princess band-aids because "they're not dressed appropriately". And my daughter has, unfortunately, gotten more and more obsessed with them.

The Princess Question continues to confound me. I wonder how popular the Disney Princesses are in the Philippines? As we prepare to move there, I find myself wanting to stock up on Princess movies to ease the transition for my daughter. But my husband, like many fathers (I'm guessing), has had it.

My comfort is that my daughter has not asked to wear makeup, is not boy crazy, still won't let me wash or brush her hair without a fight, and wants to grow up to be not a princess, but "an ice-cream maker and seller". Which is its own issue...