In yesterday’s post, I was writing about how dying (twice) is the best thing that has happened to me. Bar none. Yes, I will state it that baldly because it’s true. It has taught me so many things, the main one being appreciation. I have dubbed every day I’m alive a bonus day, and I am deeply appreciative of it.
I have said this several times. I should be dead. For real dead, I mean. Not temporary dead. Permanent dead. I should not be here. I should not be breathing air. I should be in the ground. Or rather, scatteered to the win. I would like to be cremated when I die, but in order for that to happen, I need to write a will. My mother and I had this discussion several years ago. I said I wnated to be cremated. Much to my surprise, my mother vigorously protested. I thought because she was a Christian, she would be all for it. Christians are about the soul and not the body. But no. She said that she needed a body to visit, which freaked me out.
I am not gawping at the world every moment of every day. You can’t live life like that because, well, you just can’t. I was talking to my brother about a woman he had dated (read, had sex with) for a month. He was waxing poetic about her because the sex was so good. He has mentioned it more than once that he wanted someone else with a matching libido. Which, fine, but I tried to gently tell him that it probably would have tailed off over time because that’s life. You can’t keep anything at a high level of intensity for many years. Emotion-wise, I mean. It’s just not sustainable.
He didn’t want to hear it, so I let it go after making my point (three or four times. I’m fucking stubborn). You can’t make someone hear something to which they are closing their ears.
It’s true, though. I’m sitting on my couch and looking out the window. It’s a gray day, but there are streaks of blue in the sky. My conifers are green and the trees are budding. It’s 57 degrees after wildly swinging weather. It feels nice. I like anything up to 60 degrees. I’m wearing shorts and a Batman t-shirt. Life is, as they say, good.
I was talking to K the other night. I said that while I was the same person, I had gained perspective from dying. I said I thought I was a much more positive person (but not in a Pollyanna way), and K agreed with me. I’m much more likely to tell my friends that I love them. I’m much more likely to express what I like.
It’s funny. I had a very low self-esteem for much of my life. I could count on one hand the thinggs I liked about myself and still have a few fingers left over. I hated the way I looked, thought, acted, and behaved. I cringed at every word that came out of my mouth, and I was constantly editing what I had to say/think/feel.
Taiji helped mitigate some of that. I didn’t hate myself as I had in the past,but I sure didn’t love myself, either. By the way, I tihnk it’s horseshit that you can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself. I have loved other people all my life without loving myself. I’m not saying it’s the best way to do things, but it’s possible. I do think it’s better to love yourself because then the love you have for others will be better, but it’s still possible to love others when you don’t love yourself. The problem is, at least for me, I couldn’t accept that other people loved me as well. Why would they when I did not love myself? But I loved other people deeply. I just couldn’t fathom why they put up with me.
After my medical crisis, I swung the other way for the first few months. I was feeling myself, and you couldn’t tell me shit about me. I was cute AF, and I had the selfies to prove it! I did my hair in different hairstyles, including the Chun-Li bunches, two ponies, two braided ponies, and what I consider the Lara Croft–the high pony that is then braided. No, it’s not one of her hairstyles, but in my drug-soaked brain, it is. It’s also my current hairstyle for the day. It’s practical, but also cute. Then I put it up in a high, sloppy bun for sleeping. I really like the Chun Li bunches, but that takes more time because I do it by putting my hair up in two ponytails. Then I braid each ponytail. Then I warp it around the ‘stem’ of the ponytail and securue it with a scrunchie. I also make each ponytail with a scrunchie, which means double-scrunchie on each side.
I’ve always loved my hair. It’s one of my physical features that is a standout. funnily, I used to have it short when I was in college. I would just go into my haircutter (at Great Clips!) and tell her to cut it however she wanted. She was great, and I trusted her to cut it in a way that was flattering to my face.
Then, I had a horrible experience with a hair school because Asian hair is the worst, apparently. I wanted a perm, and they could not get it done in six hours. The studuents, I mean. I had to come back the next day for the teachers to fix it, and I decided to leave it alone after that.
I let it grow. And grow. And grow some more. Over a decade later, it was to my waist. Then it stayed there for another decade. I trimmed it every six months or so, but that was it. Then, all of a sudden, it grew another foot. I have no idea why, but it coincided with me cutting dairy and gluten out of my diet. Was that the reason? No idea. My hair grew to mid-thigh and then stopped again. Now, it’s nearly to my knees.
What I want to tell people, especially women, is to forget all that body hatred. It’s so pointless, and what’s more, it’s painful to watch. I want to tell them that they are beautiful just the way they are, but I know that it won’t be heard. I wouldn’t have listeened if someone tried to tell me that before I died. My body survived death. Twice. That is someting to be praised.