Friday 19th May 06, 4:00AM
I was feeling really positive yesterday, I got a lot done and then I went to meditation and it all seemed possible, but now here I am awake again. And I’ve got a headache.
Purple Dragon made a comment about self-image, saying everything springs from that, that she can achieve anything if she feels gorgeous. And I can see exactly what she means, except, of course, that I hardly ever feel ‘gorgeous’. So I have to get by anyway and just get on with it, just as I have to get by on 4 hours sleep.
So, why don’t I feel gorgeous? Is it because I just don’t try? Or I don’t know how? I look at the stuff my daughter does with makeup and her hair and clothes and I am completely clueless by comparison. I have people who have told me I’m beautiful – though recently it’s mostly other women. But it doesn’t really make sense to me, I just can’t see myself in that way. Well, I didn’t when I was younger, now I sort of can, but I still don’t really connect with the idea.
I don’t quite understand why. When I was a little girl I thought I was plain. If anyone said I was pretty I said ‘No I’m not, I’m plain’. I had this thing about my hair, because my Mum always kept it short, I thought it made me look like a boy. When I was old enough to have it how I wanted (about 16, I suppose), I let it grow, but it was always greasy and straggly and horrible. I used to twist it round my fingers and it all got broken at the back so there was a big gap in the back where it was a lot shorter. I’ve never been able to do things with it, I’ve never learned how to curl it, whenever I tried it looked worse than ever (there weren’t such things as straighteners in those days).
I guess my attitude to my hair typified my attitude to clothes, make up, everything. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to spend time over them, whenever I tried I just seemed to end up looking worse than ever, as far as I could see. I also had this feeling that I shouldn’t spend time over them, that somehow it was morally wrong to fuss over my appearance, and that people should just accept me the way I was. I often used to get mistaken for a boy, which reinforced those feelings. If boys told me they fancied me, it didn’t really make sense to me, because why would they, I just assumed there was something wrong with them. That was where this business of settling for whoever I could get came from. Though looking back I can see that I was probably quite attractive. But I have never believed it.
Which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, I guess. But how do you get away from self-fulfilling prophecies? Given that they are constantly being reinforced..
I also remember being quite threatened by the thought of being fancied by men. Much easier to stay hidden in the background, not noticed. Because I didn’t expect anyone to fancy me, so I felt I had to learn to come to terms with that and just get on with life.