’soon enough, all of your hard work will fail.’
song: barenaked ladies — one and only
it’s been an interesting week or so…
it started pretty badly…
my parents, not realizing that i am a month shy of twenty-two and a legal adult, want me to change who i am to fit their old image of me, one that i never was and never will be. they’ve always had dreams of me becoming this perfect fashionista with long, flowing hair, beautiful dresses/gowns, a crap-ton of makeup and high heels. at first glance of me, i am clearly not that person. and i’ve shattered their dreams of who they want me to be, so much that they’ve gone batshit crazy and threatened to take away my car (a possession i value quite a bit, as i worked hard to be its proud owner and driver) if i do not become the WOMAN they want me to be by the end of this week. they expect me to give up my life and happiness for a vision of who they want me to be.
in their minds, a woman is of no value and is not ‘really’ an adult until she is married… and then she is whatever her husband wants her to be.
they want me to give up everything i love in my life in order to keep my means of transportation and, indirectly, my means of supporting myself. they want me to change my appearance drastically and change everything i am passionate about and the people i love because they do not agree with me.
they also want me to stop listening to the music i love, to stop making the music i enjoy making, to change my major to something more ‘feminine’, stop going to see performances (because only whores drive out of town) and stop dressing in the way i am comfortable dressing. in short, they want me to stop living my life and start living the life they expect me to live… one that i would undoubtedly become suicidal attempting to live. they gave me until the end of the week to start growing my hair out so it’s long again and remove my piercings. they want me to have long hair and a scarred face, to feel ugly. because if i feel ugly, i’m beautiful to them, because i’m conforming to their ideal of what a woman is.
because my life? it’s not mine. it’s theirs. and my decisions and feelings and thoughts? not mine, my friends are dictating my entire life in the wrong direction. i don’t want to look the way i do. my friends want me to. i don’t like the music i love. my friends make me love it. i’m not really a human being. i am whatever those around me make me be.
on my end, i feel really good about my appearance for the first time in my life.
when i got rid of my hair, i felt such a huge relief. one i’ve never felt before. it was a symbol of all the years i tried to be someone i never was. i hated myself. and i’ve recently dyed it blue. (about to do more than just a tint of blue) i’ve dyed my hair every color imaginable at least once, blue being my favorite. they’ve never liked that, and i’ve suffered many bruises from that. once, i wasn’t allowed to use a comb for a week… because ‘punks and hippies are dirty and don’t use combs’, they told me.
and the jewelry in my face? i have 10mm plugs in both of my ears. they are rarely the first thing anyone notices about me. the second, smaller rings? same thing. they blend in. and my eyebrow ring, something they’ve really been getting on my case on? do they realize that if they rip it out it will not only get infected, but the scars will be really unbearable to me? i’d look in the mirror and hate the sight of my own face again.
for the first time i can remember, i don’t hate what’s staring back at me in the mirror.
and i’m healthy… and smiling often. and i don’t want to tear my body apart.
i am far from the fashionista they want me to be. i’ve been passing for a man often. i don’t mind that one bit and in fact embrace and prefer my androgyny. i love messing with people by spiking my hair one day and wearing makeup the next.
my parents are obviously very afraid of and against this. i find beauty in androgyny and art in piercings. i’ve always liked getting rough and playing sports and resented them for forcing skirts and high heels and makeup on me and not allowing me to go play basketball with all of the boys on the playground. they still have that little FRAGILE image of me in their minds… one that they fabricated to make themselves feel like they were doing the right thing for me. they refuse to remember all the times i ruined those precious dresses with grass stains and cuts. my resistance to their forced girlhood was met with beatings and bruises to ‘behave like a girl’.
and they keep insisting that having long hair and removing my facial piercings is in my best interesting… for my health.
what good is looking the way they want me to if i hate my body enough to hurt myself? what good is being who they want me to be if i’m miserable and NOT healthy?
i simply do not understand. i do not understand what is wrong with me… why i am so ugly and stupid and a waste of life. they’ve almost gotten me to believe this and it makes me uncomfortable in my own skin. they’re making me resent my body, despite how i finally feel good about it.
they’ve drained me this week. my voice is still recovering from fighting. i am a music major and absolutely *need* my voice to make it through the semester. they’ve been making so many threats that they’re making me feel very unsafe.
and yet, i am the one making threats. they told me that i make threats with my absolutely hideous appearance. that i’m an eyesore and an anomaly because i’m a failed woman.
i wake up every morning and hate myself.
besides this on-going mess… i’ve had a pretty good week.
this past thursday was my greek name day. a name day is kind of like a 2nd birthday.
so to celebrate, my roommate and i went to annapolis maryland because enter the haggis was playing there at the ram’s head tavern. i’d never been to maryland… and wasn’t planning on going to this concert because it was a two-hour drive from west chester/philly-ish on a weeknight… but there were weird signs all over the place pointing at me going to this concert.
first of all, it was my name day. i hate holidays and birthdays in general, because all they do is get messed up. and it looked like everything would get messed up that day. of course, the morning phone calls wishing me a happy name day… and then we had a fire drill at 9am. i was just falling back asleep and thought i was dreaming. then, hannah called saying she was in the hospital.
normally, i’m really selfless and drop everything i’m doing to take care of a friend… but this week was just horrible! and i don’t get excited for things often… and i was really excited for this concert, so i guess i was not feeling so great.
also, the venue they played at is called the ram’s head. my favorite bar in west chester, baxter’s, recently changed its name to ram’s head. yea. so annapolis it was.
turns out wcu sucks (SURPRISE!) and gave hannah the wrong meds…. but she was bouncing around and excited to go to the show.
we wore shirts that we created with puffy paint. 
we got there pretty early and enjoyed some local beer. i went straight for the local IPA… hah!
upon entering the show space (huge bar!), i got myself a bottle of yuengling… hah. i drive two hours to have yuengling… i know. how silly. (pottstown is really close to west chester) and i also fell in love with a brew called genius stout. creamy stout with a chocolate after-taste… a lot like steelworkers’ stout, only creamier.
the opener were the wild rovers…. who i’ve fallen in lust with! they were quite a fun time and did fisherman’s blues. yea. they were awesome.
then enter the haggis! they are simply amazing. this random excursion was my 25th show. it blows my mind that i’ve seen them perform so many times.
their set simply rocked. and hannah loved it. we were sitting next to brian’s laptop in a corner by stage left and were dancing our asses off the entire set.
no cameos… but broken line was absolutely MINDBLOWING. it’s gotten better and better every time i’ve seen it performed. and they also did long way home and life for love for encores, and it was pretty awesome…. a lot of songs from gutter anthems… few older songs. suburban plains and lights and cars were the best i’ve heard them be…
the set did not compare to the excitement of having just seen the decemberists a month a go… but it was still pretty frigging incredible! i’m glad hannah enjoyed the set!
craig really liked hannah’s shirt too. so much, that he had her hold his beer to go get a marker to sign it. i probably would’ve taken a sip of it because i lack in self-control. hahaaaa yea. craig is awesome. and we also talked to professor james about brewing for a while. brian was either vaguely amused or scared when i told him i’d just de-virginized hannah. (probably scared? hahaaaa) they’re truly some awesome people.
we stopped at a shady diner in delawhat on the way back. it was next to a store that read PIANOS on it on i-95, so it was clearly a good choice. and it was yummy.
the next night, a bunch of us got incredibly wasted and it was a good night, because i was surrounded by really awesome people.
the next day… jane and i hated life and decided to fill up a kiddie pool with bathwater and turn it into a hottub. it was quite awesome.
then on sunday…. jane, hannah, stoner chris and i went to baltimore for breakfast. yep. because we could. so random, yet so awesome.
after failing at life/directions (google failed!), we got there and ate yummy things and i sipped on a pina colada.
then, we went to a bar called HON. and i had myself a smithwicks and a paulaner. both out of a guinness glass. fail! the paulaner tasted like a more bitter version of franziskaner’s… but it was delicious.
full of booze, we made it to inner harbor. which gets me back to jane. i like jane a lot.
and it was really cute being at such a pretty place with her. (most awkwardly hilarious ‘double-date’ ever? hahahaa)
yea.
it was a great day and i had a lot of fun!
today has just been bleh. but i love my roomies like woah. so i think it’ll all somehow be ok.
and now, it’s time for food.