Tag: women

the act of unraveling

So much of my time is spent photographing others, writing on behalf of others, and using a different voice to portray a certain message. I have found it hard to really know myself because I focus so much on everyone else.

It is easy for me to pick someone apart by listening carefully and paying attention to their responses and the things they say and do not say. I am an expert understander.

It is not easy for me to put into words how I feel about things, maybe because I am not often asked. I am the asker.

Lately I’ve been asking myself how I can open up more and trying to mirror the vulnerability of others. I write so much, and sometimes feel so in tune with myself, but I don’t know if I have ever truly shared that with someone else. I don’t think I’ve ever voiced my deepest darkest thoughts and hopes and dreams and fears, and I don’t remember ever wanting in such a precise way before.

I have kept me close to me, worn my emotions and complexities like a tight second skin. I wrap myself around myself around myself around myself like a snake coiling and ready to strike in case someone tries to get too close.

But what am I protecting myself from? Where did I learn this behavior?

How do I put the fangs away and unravel myself, now that I want to let someone really know me?

This is what I’ve been trying to do, I am currently in the pursuit of being known by someone that I want so badly to know me. To like me for me, and isn’t that all that anybody has ever asked for?

sonata no.14 in c-sharp minor by beethoven type of post

A person can be defined by their experiences. Their understandings of those experiences, their reactions to those experiences, the conclusions they draw from them, what they learn from them. Their thought process, the kind of relationships they maintain with others, their character, the way they speak.

I’m the melting sea caps pouring into the ocean.

Probably more closely is that I’m defrosting like a frozen chicken.

I feel really good things are on the way, are here already. I am living with high stakes and high payouts.

multitasking

Being a girl is sitting in the salon chair every two weeks crisscrossing your arms for the fill and hoping that the movement from the massage chair doesn’t move the drill and burn your nail beds while trying not to kick the nail tech scrubbing the soles of your feet with a pumice that tickles and hoping you picked the right color.

It’s wanting an iced americano but without sugar so you can be skinny and thinking about when you’ll squeeze in 45 minutes of cardio before your plans tonight and how your concealer is running out so you can only put on makeup after the gym but before plans and you need to wash your hair today and style it and you really just want to stay in and read a book and not go out at all.

But that guy you almost went on a date with but ended up being actually still married even though he’s 25 is going to be there tonight so you want to go out so he sees you even though you won’t date him because ew and either way you don’t want to date anyone but maybe one person but that’s complicated for no real reason except for some very real reasons involving the future and time and space.

Being a girl is exhausting and full of multitasking and caring about everything and never feeling like you’re caring about the right things but not being able to make yourself care any less anyway.

moon sickness

My period cramps are so bad, they’re like those massage chairs that roll up and down your back except it’s not my back and it’s not a massage it’s just waves of bad

I cry so easily when I’m involuntarily bleeding like this, and I can feel my mood turn at the drop of a hat and it’s like I’m on the outside telling my inside self, “NO STOP, IT’S NOT A REAL FEELING IT’S THE BLOOD BEAST. THE MOON SICKNESS!!”

Me refusing to listen to myself over and over again and smiling ear to deaf ear while I dive head first into cold waters avoiding meeting my own eyes in the reflection yet again yet again yet again

And after the blood beast has ravaged my village (vagillage??? anyone???) I’m left looking at all the shit I wrecked because I was PMSing like a motherfucker and I’m SORRY but also my lower back hurts too much to pick up the pieces right now please call back in 2-3 business days

Whatever I’ll YouTube a Ted Talk when it’s over. Get a latte. A frappe!!!

I could eat a whole seafood buffet right now. Every single crab leg they’ve got would be like a sacrifice to the blood gods and maybe then I wouldn’t cry so easily and it wouldn’t hurt so bad

The ancient art of bleeding through your underwear at work. The timeless fear of sneezing.

shark week hoo ha ha

Can we just, as people who experience periods, get a pass sometimes to act irrationally because periods suck and feel bad and they make you feel alone and ostracized because for whatever goddamn reason it’s still taboo to talk about.

I had car trouble on the second day of my period. Then I got some really bad news, and you can imagine how that went.

If you don’t know, the first 24 hours after the onset of your period are the worst for cramps and hormone levels. It truly is like the gates of the underworld have opened in your uterus and the hounds of hell are running around ragdolling the shit out of your insides. Maybe a less graphic description is the scene in Spongebob where the little worker Spongebobs in his brain are short circuiting and there is a fire and sheer panic because they threw out his name and can’t remember. Instead of WE THREW OUT HIS NAME! it’s WE MUST SHED THE EGG!

In summary, there is a lot of blood and there are a lot of emotions.

I felt very alone, which I am usually fine with. I like being alone, and I like doing things by myself. But not on that night. I hate feeling powerless. I hate hate hate asking for help.

I’m waiting for my tire to be fixed, trying to stand still and listen while it feels like a melon baller is scooping out my insides. The guy is asking me questions about how long I drove on the flat tire, and what caused it, and I’m trying to swallow my nausea before I answer.

I’m also wondering what time exactly did I put my tampon in because if it was noon then I won’t die from toxic shock syndrome, probably. Hopefully. And I’m angry. So angry because why don’t we have anything better yet? Why does the only thing that actually works and isn’t uncomfortable, the tampon, have to have such a huge risk of death. Why isn’t there an option that doesn’t make you feel like you’re wearing a blood-soaked diaper, or risk actual death, or worse, smell like blood?? I was angry and I was having the worst cramps I’ve had in a while.

I felt flight-or-flight-y, and my eyes were filled with tears but I didn’t want to let them go because I knew people would think it’s because I couldn’t handle a flat tire but I just couldn’t handle it on top of my bad news on top of the worst day of my period. I didn’t want to be the girl that cries because she’s on her period. And my back hurts and my boobs are sore and I got a zit from hormonal fucking acne.

I would like to have whatever causes that – prostaglandins? estrogen? progesterone? – removed.

I was like how on earth could I be expected to deal with this news and get my car fixed while I’m publicly bleeding out? Can I get a stunt double, because this sucks.

And people will go ewwww and gross like half of the population doesn’t experience this once a month and put on a fake smile and do everything that the other half of the population does while the lining of one of their organs is literally shedding itself and pouring out of their bodies.

Fuck those commercials where the ladies are playing tennis and smiling and jumping around like having a rolled up plastic time bomb up their bajingos is so fun, so convenient. I want to take my boobs off, put them on a hanger, and go get a facial and a massage because my back is killing me and this zit is basically a second head. I want to destroy the Pyramids of Giza in sweatpants with a hot water bottle duct taped to my stomach and eat an entire cheesecake after with my bare hands.