Reflections on My Reflection

This may be one of the most honest pieces I’ve ever written about my weight/body size. Here goes.

I was always big. Never so big that I suffered any real social outcasting in middle and high school, but noticeably larger than my mostly thin and short friends. Because of my history of sexual abuse and violence, I was mostly disconnected from my body and while I can recollect a few times wishing to be thinner or shorter or prettier or whatever, I can’t recall ever really daring to think about it too much.

In a way, I think I convinced myself that if I didn’t think about my body, it wasn’t really real and the things that happened to it weren’t really real and its size wasn’t real and you can see where I’m going.

But then I found feminism. And college. And messages of body positivity that required me to think about, to thank, and to love my body. I tried for awhile to get on board with the fat-positive and body-positive movement, and though it’s one I fully support and admire, it never felt like a movement that was home for me. Though my body had been policed by a few family members and relatives over the year, I hadn’t really had the scarring moments of those I love telling me my body needed to be thinner. I remember trying to “diet” a few times in high school, but I usually gave up after a few days-noting that I didn’t want to think that much about my body and I wanted a piece of cake. So I had to try to figure out how to love this body of mine that I have that doesn’t seem to fit any of the paths I’m supposed to use to learn to love it.

I found my answer by focusing on the things my body does for me. It hugs people, it makes love, it takes me from one place to another, etc. I also would stand in front of the mirror and admire my body and say “Damn girl!” until I truly felt good about the reflection. I did this to overcome my natural negative response to my body. I tell this story often, but I leave out probably the most important truth. I didn’t’ do those damn girl exercises to overcome my negative body image in the sense that I thought I was fat or ugly, I did it force myself to own the physical space I occupied as a beautiful part of who I am. I’d never really accepted my body in that way-never wanted to let it become too much a part of who I was, lest the bad things that had happened to it would have too much power.

My mistake in this, however, was that I didn’t realize that I needed to address the issues of my abuse and assault and to learn to see them as something that happened to my body, not something that defined it. This is something I work through every day, and I wouldn’t pretend to have any advice on making this easier.

And now to the present, where I’ve recently decided that this semester, I really want to commit to getting cardio exercise 2-3 times a week and doing yoga 2-3 times a week. I want to do it because I feel like my body wants me to. It wants to move. Both it and I (or I guess just I? congruency is difficult) don’t like that it’s stiff in the morning and that I can’t run or go up the 4 flights of stairs to my classroom without losing my breath. I’m 20 years old, and I don’t want to spend my 20s feeling like my body isn’t capable of doing all that it could. And I know it well enough that dieting is not the way to achieve that, as my body is incredibly good at telling me what it needs to eat and how much of it it needs to eat-especially if I just listen closely enough.

So now I’m here-resolving to exercise more and even tempted to buy a scale because I know that seeing tangible results will help motivate me. (I also think I’m at a point where seeing numbers not going down on the scale will not destroy me and that I don’t feel the need to set a goal weight, which I think is good.) And I feel like I’m somehow betraying my feminism by doing so.

I suppose it’s less that I feel I’m betraying my values with this new dedication to exercising my body, but that I fear my actions will be misinterpreted as some kind of body-hate, when really, they feel like body love to me. As twisted as this sounds, if I gained 100 pounds, no one in my inner circle would ever raise the issue or bring it up. They would truly continue to love me and not judge me and trust me to love my body. But, I fear that if they catch wind of me owning a scale, they will feel room to criticize me. I wonder if these fears are imagined or real? And I wonder if other feminists ever struggle with these issues.

I’m not really sure where this whole journey will take me, but I think I’d like to write about it more on this blog. If you have any advice about reconciling all these conflicting things I’m feeling, please feel free to share.

Xoxo

P.S. Blog about my Christmas haul coming soon!

New Year!

2010 has been one of the most incomprehensible years of my life. I've loved more intensely than I ever thought possible and lost in a way I never believed could happen.

I met new friends and built and left an entire life in England.

I'm ending it less sure of anything than I was last year at this time and I'm trying to see that as a good thing.

I like resolutions, though I rarely end up really sticking to them. Let's see how this goes.

1) Write in this blog once a week.

2) Write in my journal each night before bed.

3) Learn to enjoy talking on the phone again so that I can reconnect with friends with whom I've lost touch.

4) Hold my nephew as much as I can while he's still a tiny baby.

5) Be more honest with the people around me.

6) Do aerobic exercise 2-3 times a week. I don't feel like I take care of my body well enough in terms of getting my heart pumping and I want to give it the attention it deserves.

7) Do yoga 2-3 times a week. I need to work on getting back in touch with the way my body feels and moves.

8) Start my grad school applications early so that I feel confident about each one.

9) Focus on treating my depression and anxiety and getting my brain chemistry back to a place that feels constructive.

10) Be more responsible with money and resist using shopping as a coping mechanism.

11) Find more reasons to believe the world is a good place.

I'm not sure what 2011 will hold. I thought I knew what this year would be about, but it really just served to remind me that I don't know much about anything.

I hope your New Year's Day finds you healthy and happy.

xoxo

ShoeDazzle. Love of my life.

Hey all. Finally back, and with a post about shoes to boot! (pun totally intended.)

I signed up for ShoeDazzle a few months ago and have pretty much fallen in love with it. I was a little hesitant at first because I have big feet, and feet that seem to run a different size in most shoes. But, I've received two pairs so far and both fit perfectly!

In case you want to know, ShoeDazzle is a styling service that provides you with a selection of new shoes to pick from each month-each only priced $39.95. Seriously. I'm in love.

Here's the first pair I got:

I wore them for a night out to a club, and they held up really well for the first 2-3 hours. After that, understandably, the dogs started barking. But I still think that's an impressive result for having a whole lot of woman balanced on tiny little shoe.

Today, my next pair arrived in the mail. I. Love. Them.

I'm pretty good at walking in heels, but honestly, I'm struggling with these. I think it might be the platform/5 inch heel combo. I'm never had a platform and a high, skinny heel. But, even if they only make good 30 minute shoes, I still feel like they are worth it.

Yes, I know I'm going to end like the older sister from "In Her Shoes" with a closet full of expensive shoes I never wear, but I don't care. They are so pretty!

Being Thankful

Disgusting celebration of colonialism aside, Thanksgiving has never really been one of my favorite holidays. I don’t eat meat, and don’t particularly enjoy lots of Thanksgiving side dishes, so it’s never actually been much of an eating holiday. Plus, the whole family togetherness thing….I mean, need I say more?

That said, I do enjoy the idea of stopping and thinking about the things for which I’m thankful. (I absolutely refuse to use the phrase “what I’m thankful for” because ahah! Ending sentences in prepositions!)

Without Further Delay:

1) My chosen family. These people have helped me through a tumultuous year. I am so lucky to have so many people in my life who are so wonderful, giving, and generous.

2) My college education and chance to study abroad. Thanks, MU Chancellor-I really appreciate your money.

3) Cheap red wine and the Saturday nights during which it is consumed at my apartment. These wine nights are wonderful outpourings of my love of my feminist family.

4) The fact that I have a roof over my head, fierce shoes on my feet, and need not worry about from where my next meal will come. I understand what a privilege this is.

5) Blogs.

6) The MU Women’s Center and everything it has taught me.

7) Free counseling.

8) The fact that I am more comfortable in my own skin right now than I ever thought possible.

Hope you all have a lovely day filled with Arlo Guthrie, football, and lots and lots of food.

Note: I really hope to return to some more fashiony posts soon. I've just been thinking a lot more about life than shoes lately.

Things I've Come to Know About Myself (Part 1)

I’ve been thinking a lot about a post I read on Suguarbutch last year. It was back when Sinclair was writing about Kristin’s homework assignments. One post, the holiday version, has stuck with me. Sugarbutch wrote about how Kristin was going home to deal with family things and her biggest homework assignment was to take care of herself and check in when she needed. (I would post a link, but it’s password protected so it wouldn’t do much good.)

I remember this so clearly because when I read it last year, I thought about how, like Kristin, this year I had someone to help me through the emotionally draining holidays spent with my family. I knew there was someone who was worried about my well-being and who would support me. I felt like I had someone on my side.

This year, things are a little different. I don’t have that person. I want to point out that I do have an absolutely amazing network of friends, many of whom would not hesitate to support me in whatever way I needed if I asked and I am so lucky and thankful for that. BUT, friends are not the same as having a partner. At least for me, having a partner implies a level of trust that I struggle to have even with my closest friends. It means feeling I can rely on that person for anything and moreover, that the person will probably be with me through most of the difficult things I face. Last year, the ex (I still don’t know what to call her here, so I’ll settle with the ex) helped me tremendously through my holiday season out to my parents. It was also the last few weeks I would be in the US and thus everything had an extra feeling of urgency.

But this year, I’m alone.

And because of that, I’ve been thinking a lot more about the ex than I have in awhile. I’ve been trying to really understand all the feelings I’m experiencing, and through doing so, I think I’ve discovered something important about myself.

I work better as a human being when I’m in a relationship.

The ex was really my first “real” relationship (and what a doozey it was) and it was an incredibly educational time of my life. I realized that I’m someone who will always experience high highs and LOW lows and who will hold onto things and feel lost and need reassurance, regardless of who I have in my life. BUT, when I do have a partner-someone with whom we have committed to be there, to take care of each other, to love each other, I recover better. I center more easily after those highs and lows and I find it easier to ground myself with the reality that I am loved.

Now that I realize this about myself, I’m trying to figure out how I feel about it. For a lot of my life, really my whole life up until meeting the ex and falling in love with her straightaway, I was pretty content with the idea of being alone. It wasn’t like a sad resignation of being lonely forever-it was more that I just thought I wasn’t someone who could ever make a relationship work. But then, I had one. And I realized how it feels to be loved and I realized that I do work better when I have that person loving me and now I don’t think I can go back. One part of me loves this because it thinks this represents major growth, but another part still hates the idea of relying on someone else.

I’ve got some more thinking to do about all of this and what it means. If I work better in a relationship, should I seek one out regardless of how much I actually feel ready to give that kind of commitment? Should I actively seek to not be in a relationship until I can feel the same kind of love and support without one? Etc, etc.

Self-discovery is hard, y’all.

This Happened

I met Andrea Gibson! If you've never heard of her, I suggest first listening to "Blue Blanket,"which might ruin your day, and then reminding yourself of the hope in the world with "Say Yes."

Here's a picture I grabbed with her. I was shaking so hard and professing my love of her and explaining to her that I'm a getting a plus sign tattoo because of the words she has written that I don't even remember much of the interaction.

It was incredible, y'all.

Floating

I've been in a weird place. Emotionally. Mentally. Spiritually.

I'm not sure why this semester seems so different than ones past, but it's taking all of my energy to just survive it. My grades are not what I want them to be. I'm not performing at my job in the ways I want to be. I'm giving the bare minimum to many organizations I run/participate in, and at the end of each week, I still feel incredibly drained and unsure of how to do it all again.

I think a part of it probably has to do with the breakup. (Gasp! This femme-inist has feelings, a lot of them, and sometimes they are a bit fragile) It left me with this feeling that I'm in this transitional space without anyone by my side to help me through it. Of course, that's not true-as I have some of the best friends a girl could hope to have, but the feeling still resonates. I also feel an incredible attachment to spaces and the current living situation I have (in which I live in the ex's old apartment...) takes its drain on me. I also thought for most of last year that I would be graduating a year early and starting my life this May, instead of 2012. That all changed, however, and now I have to figure out how make myself happy as an undergrad for another year and a half. I lived alone in England and I got used to it and learned to love it. When I lived in my parent's house, I was incredibly protective of my space. I didn't really allow anyone into my room and was very uncomfortable when someone was in my space. I was not hiding anything, but I felt like unwelcome intrusions into my room were like unwelcome intrusions into my soul. When I lived in dorms in college, I left behind a lot of those weird space issues, but they seem to be reemerging. I love my roommate dearly and she is one of my closest friends, but I'm realizing that I might be someone that needs to live alone.

If you're wondering at this point what the purpose of this post is, join the club. I think I am just trying to understand the feelings I am having and how they relate to my past and how I can incorporate them into positive moves in the future. Next week is Thanksgiving Break and I've never so looked forward to it before. We all (need a) break sometimes.

Fireside Chat:Identities

Identities.

We all have them. We all choose these words that would otherwise be arbitrary and try to make them have enough meaning to explain our existence. I think it's one of the most core essences of our humanity, a need to explain ourselves.

I thought it might be interesting (probably more for me than for you) to explain a little bit about my identities and why this blog is named as it is. Here goes.

In a very particular order:

Woman- I identify strongly, fiercely as a woman. Now, I'll be the first to call people out at attempting to universalize a female or woman experience, but it's still an identity that rings strongly with me. It encompasses my love of things considered to be feminine (baking, knitting, talking, caring) and my place within history.

Feminist- Every day, I attempt to live my life in the most feminist way I can. I struggle with feminist as an identity, as I'm much more sympathetic to the bell hooks idea of redefining feminism through doing feminist work, rather than owning an identity, but again, it's an identity I deliberately choose. Feminism truly saved me. It opened my eyes to a world I didn't know existed. A world in which there were other people who were angry about things in the world and who helped me learn to be angry about what happened to me. Feminism helped me understand the beliefs I'd always had and never been able to defend. In case your wondering, my personal brand of feminism fluctuates between third-wave and radical lesbian separatist. Feminism gives me a goal to live by each day-living intentionally and ending oppression.

Lesbian- It's funny that it felt pertinent for me to list this before queer, the word I actually use to identify my sexuality. Lesbian, rather, for me is about a life. Though I don't exclusively date cis-women, many of the people I am closest to are lesbians. The lesbian community is the one that most closely matches my life experience.

Queer- My sexuality has never been something I've really understood. I feel attracted (most times) to combinations of masculinity and female bodies, but have experienced attraction to almost everything in between. While I tend to be most attracted to butch(y) lesbians, limiting myself to that has never felt nearly adequate.

Femme- Through beginning to own my femme identity, I've discovered a lot about myself. I've discovered that there are some femmes with which I have nothing in common and some that seem to mirror my experiences and beliefs eerily. For me, my femme identity rings true because of the people I am typically attracted to, my love of feminine fashion/makeup/shoes, and the fact that I tend to take on the more feminine gender roles in relationships. But trust, I have a feminist critique of all of those things. Identities are hard, y'all.

What's striking when reading this over is that in all honesty, this is just how I experience my identities right now. In this moment. 11:30 on Sunday night in November 2010. Things change. Me especially.

Anger

Let’s chat about something.

Anger.

I have it. I have it boiling inside me most days. Just a constant, rolling, rage about the state of our society and things that happen in the world. I have it about being told I shouldn’t have it. I have it about more things that I could possibly fit into this blog post.

(I don’t have it about a lot of things in my personal life. It seems I have trouble transferring this emotion from macro to micro levels. Thanks, therapy.)

But back to the point.

I’m not sorry about my anger. I don’t care if it turns people off or is not relatable. People are turned off by it because they are scared of it. They are scared of tapping into their own anger and realizing the incredible amount of power it holds.

Audre Lorde wrote about this very thing, and my favorite quote about it is that “anger is loaded with information and energy.” But really, if you haven’t read her “The Uses of Anger,” go do so immediately.

Anger is what keeps me getting out of bed each day. Because let’s be real, there’s not a lot else out there to hold on to. I could choose to be dejected and saddened, but that’s an emotion that drains energy rather than giving it. I could choose to ignore all the shit that is fucked up and be happy, but that’s not a whole existence. So I have anger. Lots of it.

So no, I won’t apologize for it, and for people who are turned off by it, I don’t apologize. It’s their problem, and the day they realize the power of their own anger, they will be throwing tissue boxes right along side me.

Halloween

So a few weeks ago, I got the breakup haircut. I convinced myself I could pull off Bettie Page bangs and off went my beloved hair.

Luckily, it worked. It's definitely the best haircut I've ever had and I love it.

Well, when researching my bangs, I came across this picture of Bettie Page and I knew instantly (with the encouragement from many friends and my roommate) that it needed to be the inspiration for my Halloween costume.

To put the ensemble together, I used lingerie from Hips & Curves, borrowed some gloves, found a whip for a few bucks at a Halloween store, and applied the perfect pinup makeup. Here's the final result!

(Barack Obama approved, clearly.)

Fierce Fashion

So last week, in a sadness-induced online shopping binge, I bought two fierce dresses fromFaith 21. (I HATE the name, and worry that Forever 21 still uses unethical labor practices, but I was having a moment.)

Anyway, they arrived earlier this week and they are both pretty fabulous.

For your viewing pleasure:

I already bought a pair of fierce pink peep-toes to go with this one.

Me thinks this will be my Pride Prom dress :)

Also, apologies for the photo quality. I'm still working on the kinks of taking full length pictures of myself.

Embarking on New Journeys

My life has been in a transition state as of late, and as an effect, I often find myself feeling sort of directionless and unsure of where I want to go next. I’m torn by a devotion to being a passionate advocate of too many causes, some of which contradict one another, and I’ve been looking for something into which I can focus my energies.

I think I’ve found that something in doula. A doula is trained in everything from massage techniques to ease the pain of surges (aka contractions) to breastfeeding to helping a birthing mother exercise her rights in a hospital setting. A good friend of mine and I have discussed for a good long while becoming DONA certified Birthing Doulas together. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since I first learned what a doula was and is something that is required for her on her bigger journey of becoming a midwife. Said most simply, a doula is an advocate for the pregnant woman and the birthing mother.

Today, we really committed to the idea. We bought the books we have to read, scheduled out when we were going to accomplish certain aspects of the training over the next year and a half or so, and made our commitment more concrete. It’s a long process that involves books and papers and workshops and trainings and character references and attending births and a million other hoops through which we’ll have to jump, but it’s one that I’m so excited about.

The idea of reclaiming birth is something about which I care deeply. I can’t tell you exactly why, though it probably stems of my intense desire to birth and mother children one day and the rejection of the fact I need help from doctors to do what my body is literally designed to do. I hate the idea of pregnancy and birth being seen as a medical condition or problem. It makes me sad to see birthing mamas hooked up to IVs and surrounded by a stressful and fear-filled hospital environment. Let me insert here that I am not opposed to hospital births or obstetricians or C-sections or pain medication-I’m simply opposed to women being raised to think that this is their only option when it comes to birth. I would be happy to work as the doula for a woman who carefully examined her options and decided that a hospital birth was still best for her. One of the biggest roles of a doula, in my eyes, is to help women realize all the options they have when it comes to their birth plans and help them navigate through any problems that arise.

As I move through this process over the next few years, I’ll be sure to share my journey and what I learn about birth, mothering, and myself.

The Whistles

I’ve been trying to write this post for a few days, but each time I tried to explain how I felt in an even-toned, well thought-out way, it devolved into rant.

And then I realized I was treating my ranting as though it wasn’t an appropriate response to the situation, when instead, I should be focusing on the power my outrage holds.

Here’s the situation. It’s a Friday evening. I look killer because I have a date later that night. I’m walking home, and out of nowhere, I hear the yell. The “Hey girl. Looking goooood. Want my number?” yell.

Later that night, whilst walking around the downtown area of my college town, I hear the sound that I can only describe as a “whistle-grunt.” Anyone who has been cat-called knows what I’m talking about.

I was alone the first time it happened. I turned up my iPod, hurried home, and tried to shake the incredibly disgusting feeling that kind of thing always leaves me with. The second time it happened that night, I was with my date. I had already talked about what had happened earlier and how much I intensely dislike being yelled at by strange men in passing cars. When it happened again, I screamed back “my short skirt is not a fucking invitation” and my date tried to figure out the best way to support me. I said there was no right way. I just needed to be angry for awhile and sort it out.

The next day, I discussed the situation with one of my best feminist friends. When expressing my disdain for cat-calling, she said something to the effect of “I know. It just takes away all your power in that one moment. It’s such a sudden and powerful shift and it’s an awful, awful feeling.”

I couldn’t agree more. When it happens, it’s like all at once, the years of work I’ve put into loving my body-seeing it as a temple I am lucky enough to live within, means nothing. It feels like no matter what I do and how hard I fight for the kind of justice I believe in, to some, my body will always be some sort of public domain upon which they have the right to comment.

It’s also made me analyze the different things that get yelled at me while I’m walking down the street depending on who I’m with. (The whole cat-calling/slurring happens to me on a way too frequent basis) When I’m by myself, it’s almost always a traditional cat-call and the same when I’m with a more masculine looking date/friend/partner. When I would walk around with a former partner who was more feminine presenting, however, we always got the “DYKE” slur yelled from cars of anonymous white men. My real point, however, is that no matter what the situation, it seems my body or my life is still something that people (read: white men) feel it is their place to speak about.

I know there has been a real movement to reclaim cat-calling and I think the women who can turn random comments from random men into something that affirms their beauty and self-worth are truly radical. But I can’t. At least not yet. When it happens to me, I still feel like the 12 year old I used to be. The one who hated her body and didn’t know how it fit into this great big world. I’m not her anymore, and I’m tried of people trying to bring her back.

New Beginnings

I've realized over the past few months I miss writing for a (real or imagined) audience. I've been relearning the skill and devotion necessary to writing for myself, and maybe through boredom, or perhaps ego, I feel the need to push my limits.

Most likely, this blog will be some strange balance of longer, (hopefully) well-thought-out posts of my experiences as a queer, fat, and femme feminist. Let's just see how this goes.