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.

Are They Real?

(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...

Here I Go

I'm back. I hate getting this behind on the blog, but in my defense I've had a few things going on that needed to take priority. The first was a trip to California, where my husband and I paused from life to honor our marriage of ten years. It was a beautiful few days in Santa Barbara. I will share one "alopecia moment" from that: On our last day, which happened to be my 33rd birthday(!), we went hiking in the Santa Ynez mountains.

 

The hike was amazing...and hot. I had my little hat/scarf thingy but took it off shortly after starting. The mountain breeze, when there was one, felt so good on my head. But twice we heard people approaching from the other direction, and I freaked out a little. I hurried to put my hat/scarf thingy back on before we crossed paths with any other hikers and then took it off again after they passed. What a silly thing to do! I just didn't want to face people bald. I have no idea why.

Then, on the way down, I tripped over a tree root and took a pretty nasty fall. I came the rest of the way down with bloody knees, a red, sweaty face, and black dirt all over me. We didn't see any other people the whole way down...until the trailhead, where a group of very cool mountain bikers were beginning the climb. I was so embarrassed. I tried to walk directly behind my husband so no one would see. And then, all of a sudden I got gutsy. Maybe I was empowered by these bikers who were taking on an impossibly steep and rocky trail, but I suddenly thought that maybe, just maybe, I might look like an intense hiker who really hit the trail hard core. Maybe I sported a shaved head by choice. And wow, I'm definitely not afraid to get dirty. I must have gone "off-road". That image of myself got me out from behind my hubby's back!

It wasn't so cool though when I had to go into a pharmacy down in the town and ask for bandages and a washroom. I was quite a sight.

ANYway...the other thing occupying my time lately has been preparation for a huge move. I'm moving overseas in September (AAAHHHHH!!!!) and I had to hit the ground running after getting back from California. Passports, banks, realtors, all that. Speaking of passports, here's another "alopecia" moment. I had two sets of passport photos taken: one bald, and one with a scarf. I read that your picture should reflect how you normally look, but that hats and such were not allowed. When I was submitting the application, I tried to get them to use my scarf photo. The guy asked "Is it religious?" Honestly, I was tempted there...but I said no, it's medical.

So my passport will be illustrated with my beautiful bald head. At least I got to keep my scarf on when I renewed my driver's license....

Caring More for Shade

Do you know the story of Jonah? From the Bible? Jonah warned a city full of bad people that if they didn't get it together and change their ways they would be destroyed. They did change, and God showed mercy. Jonah didn't think they deserved it though. He sat and waited to watch the city burn, and he got hot. He complained with depth of feeling about how hot he was and how the shade tree God had made to cool him off had withered, thus failing to serve its purpose. God pointed out to Jonah that he was way more bothered at the prospect of losing his shade than that of an entire city of fellow human beings being put to death.

Today is World Day Against Child Labor. While researching it enough to ease my conscience and post some websites to Facebook as a concerned world citizen, I realized that one of my earrings was missing. One half of my favorite pair:

 

I told myself it didn't matter. I told myself to think of the children in forced labor around the world. But it remained in the back of my mind.

 

Favorite earrings vs. empathy for suffering. I think earrings won.

 

 I found the earring later on the floor. But not until I had been out running around with no earrings on, which is a big deal for someone with no hair trying to look feminine. This sounds incredibly stupid now that I'm writing it, but it just goes to show how easy it is to care about the wrong things. The trivial things. The self-centered things.

 

I need to allow the needs of others to matter more and stir my thoughts and guts more than a lost accessory. Sounds trite, but it's so simple that it signifies a great truth.

 

I know I sound pretty hard on myself, but this matters. I'm not going to sit in guilt, but I am going to do what I can: I will try, as I've tried before and failed to maintain, to check the origin of products I buy to make sure I'm not contributing to abusive labor practices. And I will practice feeling. I will practice empathy. I will notice my reactions.

 



Learning

So, I'm pretty discouraged by the permanent makeup thing. I can't find an aesthetician whose portfolio I really like. I am coming back to the reason I never did permanent makeup before: I feel like I would be stuck with one shape that wouldn't always look good to me. And I don't like the solid color brows, nor do I like the attempt at making them look like individual hairs. I can't get over my snobbish feeling that they look fake. I have seen nice ones online, but not the ones I'm looking at in my area. Is that possible? Am I being too picky?

No! This is a big deal! I'm doing this, after all, to be more confident. If I can't find a design I like, then I'm not going to do it.

There is one guy whose work looks good, but he was a jerk on the phone and he's way expensive. So right now I'm feeling like I don't want to take this step. I actually really enjoy choosing different shapes and colors. And I have learned a lot through years of drawing them on. Here's what I typically did four years ago:

(Look at my beautiful sister!)

 

Those aren't terrible, but they're not shaped very well. Now, even after having a tattoo artist draw her practice eyebrows on me, I have learned to follow my brow bones. And I have learned that perfect symmetry is not possible, nor is it necessary.

 

Here's what I drew today:

 

A little more of a shapely arch so I don't look I'm worried all the time (that's how I look in the top photo, I think). Subtle differences make all the difference. I'm also learning that I don't need to get my eyeliner right on the edge of the eyelid. That just irritates my eyes. I can draw the line a little lower. The line doesn't have to be so close that you can't see my skin. It should look like this:

 

I can practice a thinner line. (Wow, the brow in this picture looks pretty good. Too bad this place is not close to where I live. My worry is that the "hair" lines would look more like stitches than hair though.) The key to reproducing this myself is a think pencil/pen. I need to work on this...

 

Maybe I'm fooling myself, still. Maybe I think I'm doing a good job drawing brows on, but other people are thinking "Hmm, she needs help with those." Drawing your own eyebrows on is a vulnerable act. People will see you and know you hand-crafted your "look", attempting to replace what nature meant but disease stole. And people will have opinions and judgments. Not all people, but some. I'm not an artist or aesthetician, but I have to pretend to be every morning.

 

Which is why I usually do my semi-permanent tattoos from Beauty-Full Brows. But still, I have to figure out how and where to place them. Look world, here is my attempt at art.

 

I will get better. For now, I worry more about whether heat and moisture or a careless touch of the hand will erase my carefully crafted brows than the shape. Although I did just learn that I need to hold the temporary tattoos on for 3 minutes, not 1 like I have been doing. Maybe now they'll stay on longer...

 

But I do know that as of right now I feel more peace about keeping this up than getting a cosmetic tattoo. 

Fools Rush In

For the past month or so, I have been looking into permanent makeup. I have had so many people get excited for me and encourage me to go for it. So, I made an appointment and went in today.

Before I tell you how it turned out, I want to dig into the reasons for doing it. The main impetus was that I'm just tired of being ugly. There, I said it. I don't feel ugly during the day. I only feel ugly at night when I have to take off all the makeup, and then in the morning before I put my face back on. I'm so disgusted with how I look at those times that I can't look my husband in the eye. I can't post before and after photos of makeup because I can't bear the thought of people seeing the "before" and thinking, "Wow, she looks weird/sick/bad/etc.".

Another reason for taking this step is because I hate worrying about my eyebrows rubbing off if I wear a hat, go swimming, sweat, forget about them and scratch an itch, get stressed and rub my temples, etc. I thought permanent makeup would solve a lot of those problems.

So, I went in today with a friend and spent an hour getting the brows drawn on. Here's what my lady came up with:

But...

When it came time to fire up the machine, she noted that her power cord was broken. I was told I would have to reschedule.

Weirdness...she knew the cord was about to go and had ordered a new one that was due to come in next week, but didn't reschedule my appointment, nor did she check the machine before we got started. I will not be going back there.

Needless to say, I was horribly disappointed. I had finally gotten myself mentally prepared to do this, and it didn't happen.

But if I'm honest, I have to admit that I have had misgivings throughout this whole process. I am afraid of getting stuck with a shape that I end up disliking after a week. I'm afraid they will be crooked. I'm afraid they will look really...fake. And truthfully, when I went in to this place today I saw a photo book of this woman's work (which was not shown to me last week at my consultation) and I didn't like what I saw. It didn't look like what I had seen on the webpage. I had decided today to just do eyeliner, but I had her draw the eyebrows on anyway. She reassured me about the realistic look she could create (which I did see after all in one photo).

But all along I have not really believed that this would actually happen. It's just not me. I may look at other places; I already called one guy whose website I loved, but he was a conceited jerk over the phone. But in the end I will probably decide to just get eyeliner done and wait on the brows. I was going to "go for it" before I lost my nerve, but now I'm glad I am forced to take a step back and think about what I really want. I like changing the shape and color of my brows. I need to do more research on artists in the area.

Until I take the next steps, I have to accept who I am, what I look like, and what my husband says about how he sees me. This self-image stuff goes so deep, y'all.

Permission to Dress Your Self

I used to think it was shallow to think about clothes too much. In recent years I have wavered between wanting to focus on inner beauty while rebelling against a cultural emphasis on outward appearance and the contrasting desire to take care of my appearance as a way to gain confidence and assert my place in a world that often doesn't recognize my particular brand of beauty (ie, baldness).

But...I think I am at the place now where I see my outward appearance as one expression of my creative tastes. I find pleasure in coordinating colors and accessorizing, and I feel like it's okay now. In my mind, I mean. I give myself permission to either buy new clothes (usually new for me, but worn before) and put thought into nice-looking outfits, or...not. Or be somewhere in between.

In the picture above, I happened to really like what I had put together that day, so I thought I'd share. Maybe it will give you a new idea for your own artistic creation!

Khaki colored skinny pants (not jeans, but not leggings--what are these called?), loose-fitting white tank, navy cardigan, navy and white bandana (which, incidentally, has the design of a turtle because I got it at a charity race), and a brown beaded necklace with a copper leaf pendant that I made at a beading boutique. I loved this outfit because a) I wore an autumn necklace in the spring just because I love the color, b) I mixed dressy with sporty with hipster, and c) because one of my favorite color combinations is blue and brown.

Anyway, this outfit was not difficult to throw together, nor did it attract any attention, nor did it cost much. But it made me feel good to be aware of the details I had intentionally put together in ways that maybe other people wouldn't have.