Appearance

I don't know if I love you, but I love the person you appear to be. It's an important distinction to make.

When I was younger, I claimed to never care about my appearance. I always said that I was just making myself happy. I bought into the corporate goth look. I looked nice, didnt' wear make up, always had my hair back and up in either a bun or a french braid. Then it occurred to me that I didn't care for that look. So, I went back go grunge. Even still I hover between the various goth and grunge looks, but that's only on the surface. I don't really care for those things anymore. My clothing, hair color, make up, etc change daily, well...kind of. I'm frequenly wearing the same pair of pants for a week at a time or more. Why should I care about these things? Well, I don't now... they seem silly to me over all.

My physical appearance, however, I don't always enjoy. I don't enjoy my weight, but I don't wantto be thin either. For me, I think I'm just too "fuzzy" as a friend of mine put it. Or did he say fluffy. He's one of those biased people though who loves me for who I am not what I am. Then again, he is old enough for such a venture. At least I'm proportional. My breasts are large enough to make me look somewhat balanced. But I still don't have a high opinion of what I look like.

I suppose that I like my eyes. The multiple colors that exist between the visible colors. To most people I have blue eyes. To people who get close to me, they notice that there are about seven different colors in my eyes that make them that unique shade of blue. They shift shades between light grey, blue and a darker blue green or grey color. Fey, they told me once, she has fey eyes and she walks quietly. Still don't know why that matters....But it plays into the look that I portray I suppose.

Oh well, ultimately, I dispaly scars, ink, metal, cloth, skin, hair, structure. I don't show where I came from because it gives the other a chance to see too much of my self.

i almost killed myself puking up my food. my heart started to give out. i'm still starving myself every other day. i don't care any more.

i hate my appearance because i'd kill myself if i turned my my inner eye on the real, meaningful things.

My appearance has always been a battle. At the age of ten, I was in the shower, and I looked down and noticed my stomach wasn't completely flat. I started crying. I was fat. I wasn't fat. I've seen pictures of myself at this time. I was actually pretty skinny. I was just TEN and therefore had a poochy belly.

Well, since I decided I was fat, I ate a lot for comfort myself. And got fat.

I hated myself all throughout highschool. I had friends and lovers who would call me beautiful, and half the time, I would cry, and call them fucking liars.

Over the past couple years, I've spent a lot of time in public restrooms. Being nomadic, it's where I brush my teeth, wash my face, occasionally change clothes and wash my hair, etc. And I usually find out-of-the-way restrooms in university buildings that aren't trafficked as much, so I can perform my ablutions without disturbance. This has the unintended consequence of putting me in good lighting and in front of large mirrors, alone, for a good percentage of my day, and enabling me to indulge in what is hard to argue isn't narcissism. I just came from one of these restrooms, where I was brushing my teeth, and these are the thoughts that ran through my mind upon considering my appearance. What I see: Hair partly tied back and partly loose. Pants with a slash in the thigh and a scar visible across my leg where the cloth parts. Arm warmers with holes and tears, barely held together by stretched threads and safety pins. A tattered jacket, with subtle holes and dangling threads at the edges. A long coat that's similarly showing its age, with fluttering threads and dangling ribbons of cloth that dance around my legs when the wind blows. Naked, my body is much like the clothes that usually cover it. (Tangent: scar) What I think: I like this. It's comforting, somehow. I go for the ironic-formal look, wearing dress slacks, blazers, and dress shirts as part of a blatant counterculture ensemble, but I wouldn't feel the same if my clothes were new, clean, undamaged. I think that there are a lot of reasons for this, including my vague background in punk culture (which defiantly hangs onto clothes for as long as they can be held together with thread and safety pins), but primarily I think that I want the appearance of being weathered. I get some sort of comfort from communicating that I've been through a lot. That I can endure. "Endure" being a word that carries a lot of philosophical weight for me. "To endure is the disposition of the sage" and all that. I don't think it's that I want to look like I'm falling apart, it's that I like being reminded that I haven't fallen apart. If I had a cookie-cutter appearance, with perfectly cut hair and brand-new, dry-cleaned clothes, it wouldn't communicate anything about my past. It wouldn't represent me. It couldn't. I am defined by the trials that I have been through. I am strong because of the wounds that I've had to heal. I am wise because I've discovered how to get this far without losing myself. I guess it comes down to this: A reminder of how I have endured is a reminder of my strength and wisdom, and why I will continue to endure. That alone does a great deal in explaining my appearance.