A Hair-Raising Experience
Well, not really. More like a hair-shortening experience. The hairdresser was so shocked at how little I reacted to having about a foot and a half of hair razored off. But really, it wasn’t emotional at all for me. After, I squealed a bit to my friend while we walked back from the salon about how much I loved it, but that’s pretty much it. And now, I give you: Before and after pictures.
Several days before:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/fallingtomydeath/Photo140.jpg
A few hours after:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/fallingtomydeath/Photo151.jpg
I wish my hair always looked like it did in that after picture though. Now I need to go out and buy product, to see if I can replicate it.
Toot-toot.
I’m in the mood to toot my own horn. I just got a ton of hair cut off, and I think this is the best haircut I’ve had, oh, I don’t know, in my entire life. I love having short hair so much, and the woman who cut it did an amazing job. Which is pretty sweet, seeing as how I went there thinking that she would try to change my mind about it, and get me to cut it into a bob (shudder), or something longer. But she went took my short insistence, and ran with it. Granted, it’s not the cut I went in there planning to get, but you know, what, it doesn’t matter. I love it.
Oh, and originally this post was going to be about how I was defending FA and feminism in this forum site I frequent, but really, it doesn’t need to be about that. I got slightly aggressive, the other party felt attacked, but I stand by what I said and the way I said it, because I think that I did a decent (though maybe not amazing) job of outlining my viewpoints.
Seriously? (Dear roommate)
Dear roommate,
What’s the point of having an alarm if all you do is hit snooze? For two hours? I mean, seriously? You keep missing your morning classes because you’ll accidentally turn it off. If you can’t wake up in the morning, maybe you should have, oh, I don’t know, done your homework earlier instead of watching Fool’s Gold AND How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. FYI, midnight, not a good time to start your work when you have morning classes. I know, I have an alarm too. It makes annoying chirping noises very loudly. However, when mine goes off, I not only wake up, I turn it off, and immediately get out of bed. Because that’s the point of alarms. To wake you up and get your butt out of bed so you can get on with your day. They are not supposed to go off every five minutes, beginning at 8am, and continuing on past 10am. It’s irritating to listen to when I don’t have a morning class, yet got up early anyway. And really, I shouldn’t have to take my computer to the lounge just to get some peace and quiet (though I doubt it’s quiet in there now, as more people have woken up). Seriously though, when your alarm goes off the first time WAKE UP. Don’t turn it off.
Sincerely,
Your disgruntled roommate.
Guilt and BED
All my life, I feel like I carry guilt with me over ever decision I make, every time I say no. Sometimes in my family we like to say “It’s a Catholic thing”, this overwhelming guilt that follows us everywhere, but for me, I feel like it’s a confidence thing.
I’ve only recently come to start loving my body for what it is, and not thinking of being fat as a temporary state, something I’ll change when I get around to it, or when I really start trying, or something. But I feel like even now, there’s a guilt that follows me when I do anything that can be perceived as negative. I felt guilty when I broke up with my ex, I felt guilty when I said I couldn’t go to Coos Bay because I had to paper to write, when my real reluctance was due tot he fact that I can’t seem to come out of my shell enough to spend a weekend with potential friends. I felt guilty when I told some of these potential friends I wouldn’t be going to the religious group I met them in anymore, because it just doesn’t do it for me. I feel guilty when I eat dessert, or something with lots of delicious calories, or that I don’t exercise “as much as I should”.
I feel guilty, I feel guilty, I feel guilty.
I know I am not alone in this, but sometimes, the level of guilt I feel over every decision I make makes me feel like no one else thinks this way, and no one understands what it is I’m feeling. It seems like so much that I want to scream, and sit in the corner with my pint of icecream, and the internet. And honestly, I do that.
When the stress gets to me, I eat. I eat when I’m not hungry, I eat until I’m stuffed so full that I couldn’t possibly take another bite. When I’m stressed, shuffling through things to find those notes from two weeks ago, or that book I need to write an analysis on, and finding a sucker, or a piece of chocolate, or bag of unpopped popcorn, it makes me leap with excitement, and it soothes the itch like only food can.
When I lived with my parents, the result was late night fridge raids, and me eating up leftovers for no other reason than that they were there, and I could. Of course, they noticed the food going missing, and always asked me about it. I tried lying at first, but of course, that only worked for so long. I felt guilty for always eating, but at the same time, I felt like I couldn’t stop. If I knew there was a food in the fridge that I liked, I couldn’t keep myself from eating it, no matter not hungry I was. It was like a compulsion, and not until recently did I realize what it might have been, and what it still might be. I think I might have BED. Note, this is nothing more than a self-diagnosis, but I hope to somehow get in to see a counselor about it some time.
Now, it’s important to note that while I think BED is what got me to the size I am right now, even without it, I would still be fat. And I’ve always blamed myself for it, thinking, “Well, if you could just control yourself, and exercise more, then this wouldn’t be a problem”.
But now, coming to the fatosphere is like coming home. All these people know what it’s like to live with fat, because they are fat themselves. I don’t think I’ve really had any truly fat female friends (and since I’m still mostly a lurker, I don’t really have fatty friend yet anyway xD), but reading the blogs on here gives me people to relate to, and to express my opinion to, who won’t just nod like they agree, but then when I try to bring it up again, tell me they don’t agree, or that they don’t remember (because they weren’t listening in the first place). I love having a place where I can be myself, and love myself, without society to tell me that I shouldn’t love myself, because myself is wrong.
I guess what I’m trying to say is thanks, fellow fatties, for giving me somewhere I love being.
Hiding Behind Hair
It has been several years since I last let someone approach my hair with a pair of scissors. I like to tell myself that it just hasn’t crossed my mind, or that I just hadn’t noticed how long my hair has become, but in the back of my mind, I know it is a lie. In the past year or so, I’ve starting thinking about how long it is, how icky the ends are getting (people say they don’t notice when I bring It up, but I always seem to notice even the tiniest frayed ends). Several time a month, the thought “damn, I need a haircut”, pops into my head, but I quickly dismiss the idea, citing not enough time, and that I don’t know any good places in my area for getting my hair done. I’ve begun to think that my problem is that my hair at its current length provides a sort of safety net for me. I can wear it down, and hide behind it, have it frame my face, as if that will somehow miraculously make me look ten times better. Nevermind that for convenience’s sake, I always wear it up anyway, at least I have the option of letting it down if I want to.
When I was younger, every six months (except for that one year in 4th grade, I let it grow) I’d get my hair chopped off into a cute little, chin-length bob. I never really though about my hair at that age, because I never considered it an extension of self, as I seem to now, but also, because I had less of an awareness of the differences between myself and the other children (note that I said less; I’ve always felt like, and been, the fat kid, but the self-esteem issues didn’t really hit me until later in life). Then, in highschool, I started to put on more weight. From my freshman to senior year, I put on about 100 pounds, I think (I’ve never bothered calculating it out, but it sounds about right). I current have my suspicions that it was due to a one-two punch of PCOS (which I know I have) and BED(which I think I may have), but I can’t say for sure, since I’d never even heard of BED until falling into the fatosphere on accident several months ago. But anyhow, I digress. I started letting my hair grow in highschool, and it hasn’t been shorter than shoulder length since.
My hair is not long by many peoples’ standards, as it only hits just under my chest, but for me, it feels like it might as well be down to the floor. But this Friday, I’m done with excuses. I figure the only way to get myself over this is to treat it with shock therapy. I will shock myself into accepting the fat that I have a fat face, and it’s fabulous. I’m chopping it off to about 1-2 inches. It will be the shortest my hair has been since birth. I am excited, yet nervous. Right now, I figure, if I totally hate it, it’s not like I can’t put on a hat, and it will grow back eventually. If it’s a mistake, I’ll learn from it. But right now, I’m ready for a change, and ready to stop hiding myself.
