Under the Hill
Under the Hill --- Now in CaribPress!
Under the Hill
Read User's Comments(0)
Unbeweavable
I recently went back to wearing a weave in my hair, something I swore I didn’t want to do, but my ex-hairdresser had done such a poor job maintaining the hair that I spent years growing out that it was back under the wig for me. I was thrilled to have it back in immediately and wondered why I thought it was so great to go natural when I could have perfect, flowing curls. My old weave addiction was back and suddenly I felt prettier, stronger, it was the weirdest sensation, but it got me thinking, why are we so hung up on hair?
The power of the weave was so strong that I took my weave down yesterday and didn’t even want to run a quick errand because I was afraid somebody would see me. It was like going out of the house naked.
Look, everybody wants to look good, that’s a given, but it seems that the “good hair” /:bad hair” war hasn’t ended, but has gone underground. Many of us have internalized it and still strive for the perfect tresses. For as long as I can remember I have always wanted long hair like all my friends and cousins had. I was so upset growing up because I had the rougher stuff that just wouldn’t grow down my back and now that I can buy longer hair I do so and often.
As a woman in my early thirties you would think I would let all that hair stuff go, but when I look at myself in the mirror without the weave, I feel a little bit less pretty and my confidence takes a nose dive. It’s the same face, the same smile, the same me, but without the hair I just feel, blah.
Does long hair make us look prettier or is it jut an illusion, and if it is an illusion why are we so quick to buy into it? I’m sure there is some psychological reason involved, but face it, there is nothing like being able to swing your flowing hair. I think for me, its being able to have that thing tat made the girls I grew u with “prettier” than me.
I wonder if in a way we never stop being that little girl who never feels as if she is pretty enough, tall enough, skinny enough? I mean I’m thirty-four years old, am I ever going to get to that point when I look at ourselves in the mirror and am really, truly okay with what is staring back at me?
I guess the truth is that thirty isn’t some type of magic switch in which you automatically have all the answers. I guess I still have a lot more maturing to do and that’s okay, because I’m really enjoying the journey. A journey that I might add I’m bringing my weave along for, but with the knowledge that I make it look good, not vice versa.
till next week…
Mommy's Little Girl
The other day I went to church with my dad. Afterwards, we went over my parent’s house. There was no sign of my mom and my dad and I started talking. The conversation turned to her friends and we were laughing and joking about some silly drama they were going through. It was all harmless chatter. I love and respect my mom more than anybody in the world. I’d never say a bad thing about her. My dad and I were just engaging in some family gossip, but when my mom appeared a few minutes later from her room looking pissed I knew our “harmless fun” wasn’t so harmless. My mom had heard everything and I suddenly felt like that eight-year-old girl who got caught licking the frosting off one of her homemade cakes; that made me wonder, are we forever stuck in our roles as Mommy’s Little Girls?
I was born with a title --- daughter, and it’s one I embraced with pride. Growing up my mother was somebody that I always deferred too; rather I wanted to or not. I respected her role in my life and never disrespected her or uttered the word “no” when she asked me to do something. But as I have gotten older I’ve found myself caught in that limbo between seeing my mom as the “kisser of boo boos” and relating to her woman to woman. When you get to be thirty-something just what are your obligations to your Mom?
Relating to my Mom as a thirty-something can sometimes feel like a surreal experience. When she treats me like a kid and offers me advice, I bristle. When she ignores me and just goes on her merry way and throws all her attention on my nieces, I feel a twinge of jealousy. When she “suggests” I do something that I’d rather poke my eyes out than do, I want to scream.
I watch people who are best friends with their Mom and I wonder how they made peace with the boundary issues. After all, any woman who says her ten-year-old daughter is her best friend and she tells her everything is ridiculed, so when exactly is that magic age when Mom and Daughter magically become equals and everything in their lives is fair game? I mean as much as I love my Mom there is only so much I know about her life and vice versa.
Think about it, for the first three years of your life you don’t even know your Mom’s first name. She is just Mommy --- giver of food and hugs and you are shocked when you realize that she is Amy, Teena, Elena --- another person with a whole other life that you know nothing about. And you like it that way. Who doesn’t immediately go deaf, blind and dumb at the thought of their parents being living, breathing sensual beings who make mistakes?
I think that’s the crux of a lot of our Mommy angst. We spend so many years cultivating this image that we want our Mom to buy into and so much time holding onto our image of who we think she is, good and bad, that we are reluctant to change the status quo that has been in tact since we were babies.
I think that’s why adolescence is such a battlefield for Moms and Daughters. It’s painful for us to have to break free of our assigned roles and we don’t do it with much grace or thought to anybody’s feeling but our own. Everybody hates their mom when they are a teenager. I didn’t, but I sure thought I knew more in my 13 years on this Earth than she did in her 40+. Every no was “stupid” at best and a conspiracy to ruin my life at worst. She just didn’t understand me and never would! I whined, never taking into account that she had done all this growing up thing years ago herself and probably knew a thing or two about it.
Sometimes it feels that when we get to a certain age our Mom almost becomes “the other woman in the family” and vice versa and there are times when we are so exasperated with each other that it feels like that movie “Highlander” in which there can be only one left standing.
Approaching my Mom as an adult is strange no matter how much we adore each other, but growing older means learning how to redraw our boundaries and redefine our relationships. I made peace a long time ago with the fact that Moms, all Moms, are a bit too nosy and too emotional. It’s there job. When we were born they took a vow to watch over us for as long as they could and it is a promise that my mom has kept in spades. That’s why I went up to my mother after “the incident” and talked to her about how it made her feel; it through her off too because mom’s aren’t really use to talking to their kids about their feelings.
I think it was a good step towards us seeing each other as people and not just our titles, Mom and Daughter, for a few hours we were just too girls chatting, and I knew then that not only would I always be Mommy’s Little Girl, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
till next week…
Threats from Below
I’ve always been the youngest woman at my job. For that most part it has afforded me a a sense of comfort, since I was coddled and mentored a lot, but as I got older the vibe was different. The older women, who had been very friendly to me in the past became downright catty, when I complained to my male friends they would always say ”they’re jealous of you.” I thought that was absurd. They were settled, making more money than me, they had more clout at the job than I did, why the heck would they be jealous of me. But lo and behold they were, not of me particularly, but of my youth, my twenty-somethingness that seemed like a threat. I thought it was ridiculous, but today as I showed a younger, thinner volunteer around the job I was suddenly aware of her youth and my age. She was in her early twenties and I was in my early thirties, she had more time ahead of her and I was just getting older. Could she have the things I couldn’t seem to have because of her age? Could she snag my dream job, my dream man? The whole scenario was starting to get ridiculous and I quickly shook off my jealousy, yes jealousy of this sweet young girl. The whole incident got me wondering, do we really have to worry about threats from below?
At 33, I have been told that the men I’m interested in might want a twenty something year- old. I have nothing against twenty somethings, but how the heck does one decide that the big 30 is when you start depreciating in value?
We live in a society that is obsessed with youth. In our teens and twenties we benefit from this, but as we get older we realize that all of a sudden the tables have turned and we are passé. But are we? It seems to me that I have so much more to offer now than I ever did in my twenties. In my twenties I was an insecure mess, still trying to find Prince Charming and waiting for somebody to guide me through my career. It wasn’t until I hit my late twenties that I started really coming into my own and taking control of my own destinies. Older woman are more secure, more accomplished and more worldly, so why do we make ourselves crazy when a younger woman shows her pretty little head?
I guess for me it is that twenty-somethings remind me of lost opportunities and roads not taken. I can’t help but think if I was their age and knew what I knew know, but the truth is you can’t go back, you can only go forward and if you spend so much time worrying about younger “threats” real or imagined, than you’re not taking care of you and embracing the seasoned woman that you are. I guess when all is said and done it isn’t so much the threats from below that we have to worry about, but those inside that threaten to erode our self-esteem and trap us in a youth that we have long happily outgrown.
till next week…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)