It's Not About What's "Best"

It's about what's "best" for you. 

This is a recent epiphany. 

I used to see other people being so successful, loving life and just looking like they are living in a sitcom in general. 

Not the dark sitcoms that are all over cable now though. I'm not evnying Bill Hader in Barry or Sweet Dee in Always Sunny. 

But like one from the 80s where the only bad things happen on "Very Special Episodes". 

I would study people like this an inordinate amount of time and try the things that made them so successful and happy. 

Then I'd go away in private and beat myself up because these same things weren't working for me. 

What was wrong with me? I wondered this all the freaking time. 

And I chased this dragon for an embarrassingly long time, too. 

Like embarrassingly so. 

Here is a prime example of this for you to laugh at. 

You know that super-casual, hair-piled-on-top-of-a-head, just-hangin-out ponytail/bun situation that people just DO sometimes?

This is what I'm talking about. 

I never felt like the got THIS right. I never thought it looked "cool" enough as other people that did it.

I didn't look as casual as one of the Friends. 

The other cheerleaders just looked more nonchalant when they did it. Mine never stayed put!

How could they get it so right all the time and I just couldn't?!

So I didn't. 

Oh, I would try. I could spend an hour trying to do this to my hair. It never looked right. 

It always looked too thought out... or too perfect.

Which is exactly what the problem was. 

See? The beauty of this hairstyle is its effortless nature, but my brain refused to let me do anything effortlessly, always needing to complicate things so much that I simply didn't try things at all. 

It was too much for my brain to try so hard at something and still fail, so instead, most of the time, I just didn't bother to try it at all. 

I gave up on this hairstyle for a long time because I could never get it right. 

I also feel like I should mention that this particular obsession was not made any easier by having a partner that was always on me to "do SOMETHING with my hair."

The look of disappointment that I would get when I'd walk out of the bathroom, ready for a gathering with my hair shiny, clean, and healthy but not "up" cut me to the damn core. 

The audible sigh and "that's it? all that time for that?" made it even worse. 

How you react to things matters, y'all. Especially when you're reacting to someone that respects you or that you have power over. People remember the words you say and the way they make you feel. 

I do, at least. And, as a people pleaser, those things get filed away in the card catalogue of my brain so that I don't repeat those things again so that I don't hurt someone again. 

Guess what though? I was hurting myself more than anything. Cause there is just SO MUCH I DIDN'T DO for fear of doing it wrong. 

And being made fun of. Or talked down to. 

Or worse, yelled at. 

I was pre-emoting about things I didn't need to pre-emote. And I found myself doing it a lot. It was very detrimental to my well-being for a while. 

Sometimes, I am afraid to write about things in this blog because while they work great for me (my bath powders, my love for garlic noodles, etc.),  I am afraid they won't work for other people and then they'll feel bad and feel defective. 

This has been bugging at me for a while now. I never want people to feel bad about things not working for them. 

Especially when it's a thing that I recommend. 

And I know this is a trauma response built up in my brain for all the times I got reprimanded for things my brain thought were no big deal.

All it takes is one stray comment from someone my brain perceives as having power over me (be it from respect, love, fear or any combination of the three) and a big warning will exist forever on the card for that item in my brain. 

I'm working on scribbling out the ones that don't serve me anymore. 

That's my job in this whole thing, to decided what's best for ME. And I want y'all to figure out what's best for YOU. If it so happens that it's something I suggest? Awesome. If not? Oh, well! Tell me why it didn't work and (if you want) let's figure out something that DOES work for you, together! 

Don't worry about hurting my feelings, I'm more curious about folk's brains than anything else nowadays. 

I love leveling up lives! 

Plus, I'm in charge of my feelings, NOT YOU. Let me figure out how to deal with them, please. I spent so long managing-- This is gonna be a whole new blog post isn't it?

But for now,  in conclusion, I have also figured out that hip hop buns (normal people call them space buns I think) serve me infinitely better than a messy bun that is never the right kind of messy for me. 

Fuck you if you think I'm too old to wear them. It's my damn head.