I am making an effort to write with much more regularity than I have in the past. This means that some days I write for the sake of writing rather than waiting to be inspired with a theme. So today, I will just recount the journey of today.
We keep strange hours. Dan is a night owl as am I. We usually go to bed around 3 a.m. This means that we also rise after our bodies have fulfilled their need of rest. This is probably one of the healthiest things I have done for my physical body in a long, long while. I cannot even begin to address in this post the amount of distress I experienced at my years long battle with an inability to sleep. So sleep feels good. It's still strange to me to wake and think right off "Oh I'm still so sleepy" only to realize that I am not - that I am ready to face the day.
So on this day, I woke up at about 11:30 after going to sleep around 4. I got out of bed and went to the living room to scoop up my phone and see what was happening in the world of social networking. It was then that I saw comments from people requesting to have the address for this blog. Because I address things here and express things here so transparently, I prefer inviting people to look at it rather than just vomiting the address on everyone's newsfeed. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of response. I wasn't inundated with scores of requests. I got a few, but some of them were from people who surprised me at their curiosity in regards to what my journey is right now.
Writing is cathartic for me. There is something scientifically founded about what it does for the mind to remove from that thoughtful cage the feelings that want so desperately to be freed. I have wondered, though, why do I blog it? What gratification does it offer me to post this semi-publicly?
When you go through something that scares you or hurts or leaves a scar of any kind, the pervading fear through all of that is that you are......alone. There are moments when humans enjoy solitude - some much more frequently than others, but not a single one of us enjoys feeling ostracized or exiled as the result of something that was not our fault. We experience things that leave damage, and our first thought is, at least a lot of times, that we will no longer be accepted because of our scars. We feel almost sure that they are ugly to others - unbearable to view - offensive.
There is something that I have learned in being in the beauty industry for almost a decade. There is no such thing as ugly. Skin can be evened out. Zits or marks can be covered. Eyes that one feels are too little can be made to look larger or cheekbones cushioned by more flesh than you'd like can be given a light dust of color to make them shine in all the glory you wished they'd have. You don't put a paper bag over your face. You don't hide. You find a way to present things about yourself that you very well may HATE, and you normalize them. You reveal slight parts of yourself to every observer to a level at which you feel comfortable. As you do this, you feel confident in your new appearance, but at the same time, you see the lack of necessity to do this. You realize that people aren't looking at the blush on your cheeks. They're looking at your dimples. They aren't looking at the shadows or contours on your eyelids. They're looking at the sparkle. They stop complimenting your lipstick, and they tell you instead how much they love your smile. You create a slight veil so you feel accepted.....and then you find yourself willing to make that veil lighter and lighter. Your mind reaches a point with those that you have learned to trust that your "blemishes" are okay. They reveal to you that they have the same ones. The things which you once hated because you were sure they would separate you from everyone become........normal.
That is what I am doing here. I have felt for so long that my scars were all that showed. I put on a THICK veil of personality and endless work, but the scars poked through. I would let certain feelings or sentiments slip through my teeth and then immediately regret it. I was found out. I had gone that moment with no cosmetic for the blemishes of my soul. I stopped being as normal as everyone who didn't openly bear their scars.
The jury is still out in my mind as to what people's opinions will be of me after I share such raw details. At this point, I have stopped caring because I HAVE to share these things for a couple reasons.
1. These things really happened to me. They shaped me. They made me who I am. They equipped me with wonderful tools or robbed from me the very same thing. If you cannot accept me in my angriest, most bitter state, then we are not friends, and you've got a lot to learn. Life will one day hit you in the face. Your turn will come. I hope that you don't erect too high of a pedestal for yourself because that's a long way to fall, but, when you do, come find me. We'll slop through your trenches together.
2. I am not the only one to whom these tragedies have happened. I want to normalize them. I want to use words with stigma like "rape" and "abuse" and "blood" and "anger". I want to use words that make people wince. They have to stop making people wince because there are our brothers and sisters in this world of humanity that need to know they have a safe place, but they won't seek it out because they are afraid to see someone wince at the ugliness of their scars.
3. I want to help. I want nothing more than for my thoughts here and the progress that I may or may not experience to offer you strength or at least a cautionary tale of what not to do. I don't want to waste a split second of what I have lived because it is just that - it is my life. I get ONE. This one. This is it, so let's use it up.
Thank you for every person that has chosen to read these usually very disjointed posts. You are making me feel accepted. You are letting me express things that had burrowed their biting mouths into my soul for a very, very long time. You are offering acceptance to the whole world of us that are hurting. You are doing something bigger.
Thank you.
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