well-being

A Perfect Ten

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 9 Comments

I was always ashamed of my hands as a child.

I bit my fingernails. I was always picking at the nail bed and tearing the nails. Though sometimes I made them bleed, there was a weird pleasure in the pain of that self-destruction in the moment it was happening. Later, regret set in, and then shame.

As a young girl, I would make play fake nails out of Elmer’s glue and stick them on, pretending I had lovely, long nails like the women I admired on TV and in magazines. They did not stay on very well, however. Just a few, brief moments of the illusion before they fell off, semi-hardened ovals of Elmer’s again.

I also had what I considered a misshapen right thumb. It was shorter and wider than my left. I hated my right thumb and it’s squat ugliness. I would sit on my hands in elementary school. Didn’t want anyone to see my defect, fearing it as outer proof of my innate defectiveness.

Around the summer between sophomore and junior years of college, I discovered artificial, or acrylic, nails. There were also, at the time, inexpensive, temporary stick-on nails available in stores, but for whatever reason, I never tried or trusted those. They were too obviously fake. They would never pass as my own. (So I would never pass.)

But the acrylic nails? They were an answer to my prayers.

These artificial nails were not a replacement, but an extension for natural nails. They involved the application of tips made of lightweight nail-shaped plastic forms that are glued onto the end of the natural nail. They would then don masks and brush on acrylic powder to cover the nail. Then an artificial nail is sculpted out of the acrylic and shaped and buffed to a shine.

In over an hour’s time spent in front of a nail salon employee, I, too, could have perfect, long, beautiful nails.

But the best part of it all was the polish.

I chose the richest and darkest red being made at the time. This was before get manicures and the myriad of colors of polish in fashion today.

I was drawn to the red. I had always loved old Hollywood glamour, so I guess that influenced my taste. Subsequently, I also started wearing red lipstick to match. It became my signature look in my last two years of college. (I also wore a lot of black before it was chic. I got a lot of comments on all of these things. I didn’t mind the attention as long as my nails were perfect.) My nickname was Maybelline.

After discovering acrylic nails, I fell in love with my hands. I felt more attractive in every way. Suddenly, my hands were available for self-expression and communication in a way they had never been before.

Great, right? So what if I had to pay a fortune. So what if I had to spend two hours each week in the nail salon breathing what must have been toxic fumes and having toxic substances put onto my nails in order to feel whole and worthy? Small price to pay if you ask then-me.

The problem is, when you rely on an external factor of your appearance for your sense of worthiness, you are depending on something that is transient.

And acrylic nails, while petty durable, were known to break off at times in-between salon visits. They were a system not without flaw.

If my acrylic-enhanced nails were less than perfect, I felt unpresentable, imperfect. Life had to stop until I could re-perfect myself again. But salons are not open 24/7. So that meant hours of waiting, feeling awful, until I could be restored to lovability again.

I remember literally plummeting to the depths of despair one time bowling with friends.

I am right-handed, so I was using my right hand to bowl. My “special” right thumb had trouble fitting into the thumbhole of the ball that fit the rest of my grip. It was a bit snug for it. And, well, you guessed it, disaster struck.

There I was, in all my shame, my deformity not only exposed but highlighted. The naked odd man out against perfect and polished siblings.

When I think back, I feel compassion for the girl I was then. Sad that my entire esteem of self was riding on such a superficial thing as my nails. But it was.

It took some years after college to begin to learn to let that kind of outwardly-obsessed perfection go. It symptomatically focused on my nails then, but that was not the only area of my appearance that suffered.

I have had to delve deep, to find my core self, the self worthy of love, having nothing to do with externals of any kind. I am still working on that one.

Perfectionism and obsessive-compulsiveness seem to be a shape-shifting animal that morphs from one area to another.

Whereas over the years my perfectionism has often been fixated on my appearance (nails, weight, sustaining a youthful appearance,) in the last 15 or so years it has also been on my career and accomplishments.

I am still working to find full value in myself just as I am. Nails or no. Big acting credits or no.

Today, I try to love who I am, how I look, just as I am. I try to enjoy the work I get and to treat every job as if it is “big time” because in my heart of hearts, where I don’t care if anyone else is looking or not, it is.

In over words, I am trying to live from the inside-out.

It is challenging. The outside world with all of its social media trappings and the business-of-acting business bytes is like a siren call that draws me off course to crash on the rocks.

Am I doing enough? Am I meeting the right people? Do I have the best headshots? The right representation? Am I in the right mindset? Am I relevant? (Yes, I have actually just recently gotten an email from an industry professional who council actors suggesting that as the focus of what actors must ask themselves. To whom? In what regards? And what if I am not relevant? Does that mean I should just stop pursuing what I love?)

And then there are the ever-present questions of well-meaning people: What have you been doing? What have you done that I would have seen you in? Anything big? Are you doing anything important? Yikes. So easy to slip off my own core-driven track of loving what I do and start to question my validity. Easy to feel lost at sea and doubt that I am on the right path, despite having a map that I love right in my own hand. Easy to feel like I have to use yours or hers or buy a new one in order to be marketable “enough” to feel worthy.

But thankfully, I know what is what. I may have to work hard to stay centered within my self some days, navigating the seas of the outer world that used to have such reign on my sense of worthiness, but today, I know what is what. And that is huge. I recognize the siren calls for what they are. I can course correct back to my own route.

I confess, I do still love nice-looking nails. Today, we have gel technology, so I only have to go to the nail salon once every two weeks. (I can barely stand to be in there. Some people love it. I just spent too many hours there for the wrong reason in the past to enjoy it. It is a reminder to me of where I have been. I do not want to go back to that.)

I have a new signature nail polish. It is called Always and Forever. It is a purplish nude matte color that is subtle, like a pink or a white without being pink or white. It is different, unusual.  I love it. It suits who I am right now. Next year, it might be something different.

I do still wear red every so often. I enjoy the bright red shock of color. I always feel a bit more glamorous when I wear it.

My nails do not have to be perfect today. Neither do I. I am the captain of my own career ship most days, and the sailing is fine.

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: polish

 

 

 

Control Much?

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 4 Comments

I developed a disordered relationship with food practically from birth.

Food and eating have long since been very complicated for me.

Food was never just food. Sustenance. A source of energy.

The act of eating was never just a means to satisfy physical hunger, fuel the machine, fill the tank.

It was security. A best friend. My lover. My mother. My father.

Relief. Comfort. Excitement. Joy. A distraction.

A way to protect my self. A weapon. A protest sign. A lockable door. A “Fuck you, world.”

It gave me a sense of well-being. It gave me something that felt essential to my very ability to exist on this planet.

But above all else, and most importantly, it have me an illusion of control.

And this, above all, was crucial to me.

As a child, my world was out-of-control. Everyone in it seemed out-of-control. Every thing happening seemed out of my control.

Inside of me, good gravy, things certainly felt out of control. Feelings, thoughts. Wants. Needs. All felt huge and to a small person who felt they had no voice and no power, they were simply more than I could comprehend or cope with.

Enter food.

The one area I felt I had any say in was with food. What I ate and how much.

Especially how much. Any hint of the slightest suggestion that I might begin to think about considering becoming open to the idea of portion control still brings up a deep revolution within me. A protest begins without my having to even rally the troops. Big signs flashes in my head: “Fuck you!” “Over my dead body!” “Not while there is still breath in my body!”

You’ve got to be kidding. I’m supposed to let someone else tell me how much I am allowed to eat? What?!

Seriously, I get so defiantly enraged at the concept I literally feel nauseaus.

To a non-disordered person, it may be very hard to comprehend. It may seem or sound absurd.

But trust me when I say that my being able to eat or not eat what, when, and how much of something I wanted was (and sometimes still is) of incredible importance to me.

Almost feels life and death to me to be able to choose and act as I want in this one area of my life. It looks very much like addiction and obsessive-compulsive behavior because it is very much both of those things.

As you can imagine, such a relationship is doomed from the start. It is not healthy. It is instincts gone awry. It is a coping mechanism that brings an initial and momentary satisfaction followed by an ever-deeper, never-to-be-satisfied longing.

Such a relationship with food and eating skews all other relationships. It is a poor substitute for a real solution to the problem. And the problem, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the food or eating. They are merely the symptom.

So the solution, for me, has not and never will be portion control. I do not weigh and measure my food. (That still sends waves of dread through my body.) I do not label foods good or bad, or blame dieting or fad diets for my problem. Fad diets and the “diet” industry are only potential triggers or tools for my own kinked relationship to food and eating.

The problem was not and never will be my willpower.

The problem is how the funky-ass relationship to food and eating developed the first place. What was missing that led to the kink in my connection to regular eating?

There were circumstances. Maybe something ancestral, genetic, sure. But truly, there were circumstances and my response to them. My best solution for coping happened to be really distorted and led to many years of suffering.

Around all of that, I have done a great deal of work. But in terms of healing, it has come  down to this: addressing the part of me that developed such a relationship in the first place.

What did that part really need? How can I help that part trust other ways of meeting those needs? (The second question is almost more important and takes a great deal of patience to answer and to implement.)

I began asking these questions, and learned to really listen for and then to the answers.

The needs and wants came first.

The answer I heard most is that part of me wanting something for herself, just for her, that no one and nothing can interfere with. In unlimited amounts.

This seemed key to the whole thing, this need.

This longing for something just for me, that no one else can have, that only I can have, that no one can take away, mess with or hurt.

Woah. Logically, it is clear when I really lay it out like that that food and eating never had a chance at solving that problem. They do not contain the ability to solve it.

But that part of me was working from a different logic that makes total sense to the information it had at the time. Given the limited resources and the level of maturity of that part of me at that time, I can see how the dots were connected to the one thing that was available and that seemed to work.

Problem is, that part is hungry for something that food and eating can never satiate.

But that is where the real work lies. But as in all things, hard work does pay off. Yes, it does suck to have to do anything at all about a problem that I wish had never started in the first place. But that is just reality and once I accepted that, things began to get better.

That is my job now. To give myself that indefinable…something…and to give it in unlimited amounts.

Sometimes it is my own attention. Support. Kindness. Comfort. Bolstering. Appreciation. Soothing. Excitement. Stimulation. Fulfillment. Fullness. Rest. Recovery. Quiet. Peace. Stillness. A sense of being ok. Safe. Whole just as I am.

These I can give myself whenever, however I want in whatever quantities that part demands, cries for, deserves. I get to pour unlimited amounts of these things into myself, and no one and nothing can interfere or mess with that.

But what about the act of eating? What about that part of it all? That part of me wants to consume, wants to be filled, wants to take in and become one with something.

No, I cannot actually physically have the experience of filling myself with something, taking a substance into my body and becoming one with it.

That is the physical aspect of the whole, and there is another series of solutions to address that part. That I can satisfy in other ways. That is a different blog for another day, perhaps.

But the rest of it, I got in spades to give. Unlimited amounts.

It took some experimentation to help that part of me trust that letting go of the old mechanism for the chance that something new would ultimately be better and actually, really work, for real. That is where patience and gentleness and compassion pay off.

But it is all worth it. The meeting of those needs of my self by myself — that, my friends,  I am in control of.

At long last, I have the power that I have so craved.

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: portion

For JC and anyone else who hates the idea of fucking “portions.”