A little bleeding now and then

What a mess I was today. Let me give you a picture of what I looked like at about 2:00 in the afternoon:
--a new pair of shoes had given me a bloody heel, which stained the hem of my pants;
--my earlobe was bleeding from a cheap metal earring;
--days and days of nervous finger-picking had left most of my fingers scraped and raw;
--and, I over-squeezed the teeniest little blemish on my face, leaving an oozing red blood blister.

And I didn't care.

If I had run into anyone outside, I would have stayed and chatted head-on as the occasion called for instead of pretending to get a phone call or strategically turning my face to expose my unblemished side.

I guess I've just been too tired to care lately. Either that, or I feel older. Two years ago, or even last year, all I cared about was looking good. Now, I still try to look good, but I just don't put the same amount of time and energy into it. And I feel much more free. Why try to hide my humanity?

I have a challenge for you. Give yourself a blemish. Not literally. I mean, dare to let some raw, real part of yourself see daylight. If you're bleeding, let it show instead of smearing it over with cover-up. Then take a step back and get some perspective. There are so many facets to daily human existence--do you really have the energy to fret over the assumed perception that you have both invented and yet also fear to face?

The Many Faces of Me

My dear uncle-in-law recently gave me the gift of sight.

At a recent family gathering, I saw people huddling over something and pointing, so naturally I was curious. As I got closer, I saw a picture of my face. And then another one. And another.

I took a minute to scan the page, and realized that every one of the hundred or so pictures I was looking at were of me. A dabbler in photography projects, my "uncle" had put together a collage of sorts out of head shots he took from my Facebook page. It was overwhelming at first. Also overwhelming was the fact that everyone had been looking at the page and picking out their favorites before I had even had a chance to see it.

But the more I looked, the more special it became to me. I have often cringed at the sight of many of these photos, but seeing them altogether was different. I was looking at a portrait of a young woman who has a good life. Each picture is a separate memory, but as a whole the pictures come together in this beautiful harmony of features. Rather than pick out my flaws, I'm forced to appreciate the many ways my face can look. I feel as if I can see myself the way others see me. This is a huge breakthrough. I don't know if this makes any sense, so I highly recommend doing a similar project to any of you who have a hard time looking at self portraits. I think you'll find beauty in "you in the context of you".

Here, I share it with you now.

Scratches and food stains and nicks, oh my!

I'm so frustrated. My sunglasses have a scratch on them, right where I need to look straight ahead. I can't go around with that blurred spot right in front of me. And to top it all off, I just bought these a few days ago.

I'm really, really annoyed. My new shoes are scuffed at the toe. This happened the second day I wore them.


My husband's only suit has a stain on it that didn't come out with dry cleaning.

A purse I had for a few weeks came apart at the seams. Well, at one seam.

A new cardigan from Target got a hole in the armpit the first time I washed it.

My brand new bike looks ten years old after a rainstorm made it rust.

I'm putting duct tape on shoe heels, taping pages in library books, replacing batteries far more often than I should...why can't anything just stay "nice"?

I don't know if I should start spending more money on products of higher quality, or just protect my belongings more vigilantly from wear and tear. I just hate the feeling I get when I see that first sign of use on something new and costly. Even if it's no costly, I feel like I have thrown money away on it if it gets marked up somehow. I will replace the sunglasses, even if I just bought this pair, because I can't stand to wear them with a scratch on them. I will donate my kid's dress if it has a yellow paint stain on it.

Like people who shop in thrift stores want the stain any more than I do.

I wrote a post on this not long ago. Then, I was able to identify stains as evidence of a story. Or two. But when I get a scuffed heel or a torn strap, I just feel so...helpless. The cycle of buying, using, and replacing seems so repetitive. And since I don't have the time or talent to fix these things myself, they just go out the revolving door of goods that leave my house and then seem to find their way back in later, albeit in different forms.

So maybe I should stop sending them out. Maybe I should wear scuffed shoes and stained blouses to work. Why not? What's the big deal? Apparently, scratches and food stains and nicks make the wearer/bearer appear to be careless. Or lazy. Or poor. We want to make a good impression, so we hide these imperfections when they occur, or we dispose of them.

I don't know what the solution is. I have had shoes from both Payless and DSW break after only a few weeks of wear. The only brand of shoes that lasts for years and years, at least for me, is Naturalizer. This is not a plug--just my experience.

I guess I should go on Pinterest and look for those DIY cleaning and repair tips. You know, where every problem is solved with vinegar.

Until then, maybe all these scratches and stains and tears are telling me to slow down, pay more attention, and take care. Maybe they're telling me I'm too hard on myself. Or...maybe they're telling me to stop trying to avoid the unavoidable and enjoy what I have. Period.

The 10-Day Redefining Challenge--Day 5

Someone asked me yesterday why I had changed my Facebook profile picture. I had been using a picture of a drawing my daughter made of me, but I was a little bored and decided to change it to the picture I posted on this blog yesterday. As I talked with this person a little more, we discussed motives for posting certain profile pictures over other ones. We tend to choose really flattering photos to post as the representational images of ourselves. There's nothing wrong with that--we all do it, we all want to put our best face forward, we all want to make a good impression.

As I looked at my photo, I began to see all the ways in which it's actually not very flattering. The bags under my eyes, those protruding lines of my neck, the general paleness...I'm laughing about it now, but catch me on the wrong day and that picture could actually make me cry. It's not my most flattering picture. If I wanted to impress people, I might post this picture:



I have a beautiful dress on, great hair, and shadows on my face to hide the bags under my eyes! Well, sort of...

But that's not always how I look, obviously. I'm afraid to post a profile picture that really shows people how I look "at home", which is not always so flattering. Here's one my daughter snapped of me while I was playing with my son:



Yeah, not so great. I would never post that as my profile picture.

But, it is a picture of me; therefore, it is beautiful. Every picture of every person must be beautiful. We are beautiful in design, beautiful in how we move, beautiful when we are living. I just can't always see that.

My challenge for us today is to find unflattering pictures of ourselves and look at them until we find them beautiful. I don't care if it takes ten seconds or ten minutes--get to know yourself from all sides and angles, see the beauty of any shape and pose, and redefine what a "flattering" photo looks like. You don't have to go so far as to post one of these as your profile picture, but it might be freeing to do so eventually. Find a picture of yourself that makes you chuckle when you remember what was going on when it was snapped, and post it as a representation of a life-giving memory rather than as the face you want people to see.

But that might take some leading up to. For now, just have courage to look at those pictures which you usually pass over or hide behind others in the album. Stay with them until they are beautiful to you. When you get to this point, chances are good that you will finally be seeing them the way others do: without judgment.

30 Days of Redefining Beauty-Day 6

While chatting with a friend today, I realized that I still get hung up on my flaws. I want to be flawless, and I think that I can't be loved if my flaws show.

Well, today I will attempt to see and describe the beauty in my flaws. I'll spare you, dear readers, by just sharing one.

I am horribly impatient. I feel like I want to jump out of my skin any time I have to wait for something. Most people don't know that about me--just my family, who bear the brunt of my impatience in the form of yelling, prodding, irritation and general meanness.

How in the world could this be beautiful? (This is going to be a stretch...)

1. I am not a lifeless blob. I am full of atomic energy.

2.

Well, that's as far as I can get tonight. Nothing else is coming to me. But hey, it's a start, right? For someone as steeped in self-judgment as I am, seeing even a little beauty in a major flaw is big news.

I challenge you to examine your flaws and appreciate them as distinct marks of humanity. Which just inspired me...

2. My impatience allows God to more fully and wonderfully demonstrate his peace and unhurried love.

Beautiful.