Brown Eyes

Sometimes, I just have to look at myself.

Most of the time, I just don't look because I'm afraid to. I have a traumatic past with myself.

But today, I got a new dress, and so I took this picture, and here is what I see.

It looks like I'm wearing lipstick, but I'm not. They just look like that. My mom used to say I had "rosebud lips," and now my daughter has them, and here, in this picture, I still have them, except they're grown up. Not a rosebud anymore, I guess. Over the course of my life, people have loved me enough to want to kiss them. And kissing - isn't that something? Mashing your mouths together to demonstrate affection for one another? I always think about that. Always. You think I'm kidding. Every time I've ever kissed someone, this special person living inside me for the sole purpose of dampening nice moments has to come out and say, "THINK ABOUT IT, of ALL the ways in the entire universe that humans could possibly choose to show affection for one another, THIS is what we've settled on."

But people have wanted to kiss them, and that's cool with me.

There's a little mole between my lower lip and chin that seems to get more prominent with age. I don't think it was there in photos I see of myself from high school or even early college. My dad constantly tells me I can have it removed, and I constantly tell him that I like it there. When he tells me that, I get upset, inside, and I usually have to say to someone, "You'll never believe what my dad told me," and then they're like, "That's terrible," and I'm like, "I know," and I get that sense of validation I've craved since childhood.

I see that I'm getting older. I think it took me a long time to look like a woman. A real, bona fide, grown up woman. You wanna know how much I weigh? Here. Here's how much I weigh.

I weigh 138.4 pounds. I'm five-foot-four, and I weigh 138.4 pounds.

Take that, old self. Take that, putrid American societal standards of beauty.

I'm not sure I've ever done that before.

But you know what? 138.4 is a good weight for me, myself, a woman. Maybe not in general, but for me. It wasn't a good weight for me as a teenager, not when all my friends were only about 110. But now, I'm a woman. Even if I'm not really taller, I seem taller, and leaner, somehow, maybe because my hips changed a bit after having a baby. I have no idea what it is, but it works, now. It didn't before, and now it does.

I used to wear green contacts, too. I wouldn't leave the house without them. I'd sleep in them, sometimes for a month at a time. I didn't want to believe that I didn't really have green eyes. And very few people could tell that they weren't real, either.

My ex-boyfriend used to practically revere them. If I took them out for any reason, he'd just look at me and sigh and say, "Brown eyes." Just that. Just, "Brown eyes."

And I was horrible and unappreciative (still am), so I'd write him off as not knowing what beautiful was and hurriedly put them back in. Yes, even if I was laying down to bed.

"Brown eyes."

Crappy insurance and the cost effectiveness of glasses changed that.

I got married and started wearing glasses and chose to get over my negative obsession with my eyes because ... well, it wasn't like I had anyone to impress anymore. Right? My husband found me attractive first thing in the morning when I was at my absolute worst. It was like I didn't even have to try for this dude. I just had to exist and he fell all over me.

Falls ... all over me. I should say. I'm a lucky girl. Woman. Girl.

Anyway, now I love my eyes.

I had no idea how dark and penetrating they can be. I don't know many people up here, up north, with eyes that dark. I appreciate them now. I wish my vision was better so that I didn't have to wear glasses at all, so that I could enjoy them more, and so my husband could enjoy them more, too.

Behind me, there's the fridge.

I can sit and look at myself in Photobooth and try to be pretty all day long -- we can't deny that there's a refrigerator behind me. Super glamorous.

This is significant, though.

My life is reflected on that fridge.

There's a stark contrast between the woman I'm looking at in the photo and the reflection of her life on that fridge.

A calendar indicating that my daughter's last vaccinations are coming up next week. Invitations to childrens' birthdays. Family photos. Coupons for recycling bags.

I can't even define what is means to be "grown up" right now.

Which part of this photo that I'm looking at really says "grown up?"

Confidence? Obligations? A new, more perfunctory view of ... what, my face?

What is the value of "grown up" anyway? Personally, I don't see any real value in the notion of "grown up" that I've maintained my whole life.

This was a deliberate experiment in self-awareness, particularly in the department of self-esteem and self-validation. Lots of self in there. It was necessary.

I have a very traumatic past with myself.

If I Don't, I'm Not Me

I seriously still can't believe that a university is going to pay me to get a master's degree in creative writing while teaching their students stuff. Whenever I think about it, I'm still kind of in shock -- mainly because I had resigned myself, many years ago, to the idea that art was just a hobby, and you were a fool to actively pursue it as a career. And then I ended up miserable doing everything else, while simultaneously being terrified of creating art at all, partially because I loved it so much and even trying it would be like going on a date with an exboyfriend that I never got over, and partially because I always had a sneaking suspicion that I sucked, so why?

Then, after three horrible, miserable years trying out teaching and banking and counseling, I had run out of "do what you love" options. So I applied to a program doing something that was just as horrifying to me as it was exciting and fulfilling and ...

... they actually wanted me. They read my statement, they looked at my writing, and they said, "This girl should teach classes and study with us." ...

Really?

I know it's "just Ball State" (to some), but I'm still just like ... wow ... I mean, now I literally CAN'T go back to full-time 9-5 work because of this.

Oh, why can't you work a full-time 9-5, again?

Because I'm in a graduate program for creative writing and I teach freshmen/remedial writing courses (I'm assuming). And they pay me. I make money doing something I love and know and long to do and hate to do sometimes but I have to do it because if I don't do it, I'm not me and I don't know me.

That's so amazing.

I guess I should clarify that "full-time 9-5" just means "one of those jobs where you work for an hour and push paper for the other eight." Or any job that you hate.

And I guess I should clarify that I've technically been working more than 40 hours a week out of my house anyway so it's not like I have an aversion to work.

And I guess I should clarify that I need to go to bed.

Just happy.

It's about time.

There's nothing inherently wrong with consumerism - but planned obsolescence is gross. Austin and I often talk about how easy it is for companies to create products that can stand the test of time - the way they used to - except they won't. My number one issue with American capitalism isn't the nature of capitalism itself, since I genuinely believe that American capitalism really can be the stuff dreams are made of. My issue lies in the way that corporations and manufacturers seem to take great pride in the fact that, if they can just make us their [expletive deleted], they can make more money. Manufacture a product that is not MEANT to stand the test of time, and we'll run out and buy more of it to replace what we just purchased that has gone out of style, been updated, or just plain broke for no reason (and there are no parts available to purchase and fix it.) There's no reason for it. I enjoy Apple products, and again - there's nothing inherently wrong with using them. I think I just wish people would hang on to what they have for a few years before upgrading. No one needs every single version of the iPhone. What we need is to take some of that money that we're spending on every new version of the product and invest it back into our communities. I think if we could learn to quit over-consuming, we could easily find a way for everyone to "have their cake and eat it too" - not only can you have that iPad, but perhaps instead of spending $600 on the newest version when the old version works just fine, we could all pitch in that $600 to update the technology in a school in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood.

Just a thought.

"According to Brazil’s Jornal do Comerciao, IBDI believes that Apple could have implemented the technological updates of the iPad 4 into the iPad 3. By not doing so, they believe that Apple took part in unfair business practices. Were Apple to lose in court, iPad 3 users in Brazil could receive some compensation.

'Consumers thought [they were] buying high-end equipment not knowing [it] was already an obsolete version,' says IBDI attorney Sergio Palomares."

http://mashable.com/2013/02/21/apple-sued-ipad-3-brazil/

A Kind of Love

I go to a lot of weddings. I photograph them, so, I kind of have to.

I photograph weddings, and I photograph engaged couples before I photograph their wedding much later. And when you photograph engaged couples and newlyweds, obviously, the look you're going for is love.

Whatever that means.

I mean, when you're there, in the midst of the job, you know what love means. Love is pretty. Love is adorable. Sometimes, love makes you cry, to see two people who enjoy each others' company so much they're willing to sacrifice life and limb in order to bind themselves to this other person legally and spiritually and, let's face it, domestically until they're dead.

Seriously, that's it. Game's over. I found you, and now I'm done. 

Love is a sinking feeling. Love is having a partner, an invested partner, someone who has made a commitment to obligate themselves to you, to take time out of their busy schedule to comfort you and encourage you. And why?

I don't know. Because you like the same things. You're attracted to each other. You make each other laugh.

Love is being willing to cross town, states, countries ... just to spend a few hours with that person who, for whatever reason, probably one you can just barely articulate, you want to spend time with.

See? Isn't it sweet? It's cute. I know.

I see this engagement video, and I love it. It's charming. I watched it all the way through and pondered it, compared what I saw there to what I see in my own marriage.

I thought about the couple being portrayed here - and I know they're real people, I know there are probably dozens of layers to their relationship and I'm sure they aren't all unicorns and glitter-hearts. But that's not the point of the video.  The point is portray this idea of love. Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy.

Can you imagine that idea of love in five years? Ten years? Fifty?

I see her in white apron with tiny red hearts on it, pulling a roast out of the oven right when he walks in the door, simultaneously loosening his tie while ...

... no, actually. I can't.

I can't picture that idea of love in ten or fifty years ... just like I can't picture a cute girl like that getting fat after giving birth to three kids, or a sweet, forehead-kissing dude like that feeling like he just needs at least three days alone somewhere playing Max Payne without interruption for once can't he just have that?

I see videos like that ... and I go to all these weddings and I take all these pictures ...

... and I come home and I think ... my marriage looks nothing like that.

I mean, it's not dull and uneventful or sad. We don't fight. We don't really even have any problems. He's my best friend, and I know I'm his.

But we aren't sitting on the couch nuzzling each other or playing Scrabble by the fire (that actually sounds kind of fun) or sipping wine at a picnic and giggling. And half the time, we're thinking of stuff we could do with other people rather than stuff we could do with each other. And I don't always cook for him and he doesn't bring me flowers every week and really ... we aren't much to photograph.

Two years and one child later ... it's really nothing like I anticipated it would be.

At the risk of sounding sappy ... it's probably better.

Which is why it was the couple slow dancing that had been married over 60 years tonight that got me all misty-eyed tonight, not the newlyweds.

As usual, I feel like my writing has just taken a nosedive off a cliff into a sea of no real point.

Let me know if you figured out the point I started out trying to make.

If You Love Something

If you love something - and by love I mean, you procrastinate your actual work to do that thing - then you should just do it.

Quit trying to convince yourself that you're fine with how things are, or that you're fine with your job or you're fine with that major.

If I could go back, I would have majored in theater performance. I wouldn't have minored in it. You know why I minored in it?

Because I was terrified of creating something that I put my whole heart into creating and having someone tell me something was wrong with it or that it wasn't good enough.

I majored in English because it was interesting enough. If a peer or a professor criticized my research paper or told me to change something, I wouldn't take it too personally. But I have always taken criticism of my creative work so deeply, deeply personally that to really expose myself to criticism, to risk being told that I wasn't naturally gifted or that I hadn't blown someone completely away, was really risking my heart.

See, I started writing as a kid. And acting, and singing. I played piano and violin. I wrote stories. Full plays when I was in 4th grade. Novels in 5th and 6th grade. I made videos of myself. I put on plays for friends and family, plays that I wrote and then gathered all the neighborhood kids up to perform. I recorded tapes of myself singing all kinds of songs. I tried started a band when I was 10. It was an all-girl band, and that's all I'll say.

My first opportunity to try out for a play, I was all over that. I acted competitively in UIL speech and theater (and kicked xss at it) from 6th grade until just at the end of high school when I had a falling out with my theatre teachers over a ton of things, but mainly just the fact that I'm over-sensitive and at that time there was no one really teaching me how to work through my more or less unwarranted emotions. It was kind of traumatic for me. It definitely ended traumatically, anyway.

I grew up being told that I was amazing and gifted because for a kid, maybe I was. The same things don't carry over to adulthood with quite the same novelty. As an adult, no one really calls you amazing. And as an adolescent, no one really explained this to me.

So, in short ... I didn't major in theater performance because I loved acting so much that I was terrified of having to face the fact that one of the only things I really, really loved doing, was something I was sub par at. I majored in English. I became a teacher. Everyone in my family had been a teacher. I should be decent at that, I guess. And I was. And when I wasn't, and when people told me I wasn't, I just took their advice and tried to make changes.

More importantly, when I took my licensing exam, my "skill" was measured quantitatively.

Being criticized quantitatively is a completely different ball game than being criticized qualitatively. It's ability versus effect. It's being able to run a six-minute mile versus whether or not people care that you can or how pretty you look while you do it. 

I also used to be a musician. I always turned down offers to form bands or play in other venues across the state because I was terrified that, the more into the limelight I got, the more I'd be forced to look at myself and be unsatisfied. And then where would I be?

Because I hated looking at myself. I never thought I was pretty. I only ever saw flaws. I'd see other female musicians ( -- don't even get me started on female musicians and who gets popular versus who doesn't. No, the mix is not homogenous. But yes, the pot's disproportionate in my opinion -- ) and believe that no one would take me seriously if I couldn't lose 20 pounds. I was an obsessive dieter. I still have issues. This isn't where I talk about them though. I just did what I could to either stay out of people's line of sight or look like I didn't care when I was in it. I wrote songs for them. I didn't dress up for them. Why?

Because I really wanted to look good in a sleeveless dress and tall boots, but I have huge upper arms and even bigger calves and so I wasn't going to, and I had convinced myself that there was something sexy and cavalier about bedhead and a faded Die Radio Die t-shirt with a hole in the shoulder.

I even quit writing for the same reasons. I began to become my own worst critic. I told myself that story ideas that hadn't even been fully fleshed out yet were stupid. The poems I was writing were too melodramatic and I needed to get over myself. Even this entry. I'm worried that all these line breaks make me look like I'm 14 writing on LiveJournal again. I want to tell you that as a form of protection, so that you know I'm not oblivious to this fact and write me off.

You know when people are proud of you? People are proud of you when you finish school and find a job, and they get all a twitter when you buy your first car and you buy property. And for a second, they even kind of want to be you, just a little bit. They're just a little jealous.

But what's the point if you don't want to be you? What if you only want to be you in a one-bedroom apartment with someone you love and a burgeoning photography business or writing career?

So do what you want. Don't let people tell you otherwise. Get rejected, let it hurt, and then GET BETTER. And keep doing it. Tell yourself you suck, and then keep doing it. Let someone else tell you that you suck. And then keep doing it. 

Realize that you'll probably never be fully satisfied with your art because it's your art. And maybe you aren't really supposed to be fully satisfied with it. Because once you're satisfied, then what? Then, realize that not everyone will be satisfied with your art because that's just the nature of art.

So do it. If you do it while you procrastinate, then do it anyway. Find a way. Make a way. Make a list of what you're willing to sacrifice and do it. Be fearless and realize that we only get one chance at this - only ONE CHANCE. Don't be a sissy. Oh, wait - you're 26 with a mortgage and a family? STILL NOT TOO LATE.

The best thing about all of this is that it's never actually too late.

I have to keep reminding myself of that.

Stream of Conciousness, What Inspires Me

I've been trying to decipher the difference between people who are genuinely happy - genuinely  contented, genuinely fulfilled - working full-time, clock-in/clock-out kinds of jobs compared to those who are not.

To clarify even further, I don't mean the teacher who is passionate about teaching who works a full-time teaching job, or the mayor who is genuinely passionate about city government working their full-time job ...

... I mean the bank teller, the grocery store clerk, the corporate manager, the telemarketer, the auto salesperson.

I know people that work jobs like that for years ... years ... and they're happy. And the thought of losing their jobs is terrifying to them. They might not always like what they do, but they're not miserable. Not like I was, anyway. These are people with hobbies and interests like the rest of us, who are willing to trade in hours of their lives in order to maintain a particular lifestyle.

I can't think of anything outstanding that isn't presumptuous or narrow-minded. Nothing that really explains what I'm feeling.

See, when I graduated college and entered the workforce, it seemed as though some invisible force came along and snuffed out my muse. Obviously it didn't, as there have most definitely been embers burning hidden beneath the ash all this time, occasionally kindled by something or another, resulting in a song or poem or story idea or even a post like this. But as I became more fixated by my ever expanding to-do list (which seemed to grow more after I left work to stay home with my daughter than to shrink) my ability to produce really dwindled.

I remember being told that my daughter would become my muse. It would be a lie to say that she isn't, because she is, but not like you'd think. She's more of a motivator than anything - a motivator, as opposed to a muse. I look at her and am not inspired to write or create, at least, not on my own. I look at her, and I'm more inspired to spend time in nature with her, to throw some paint around with her, to try a new cookie recipe with her, to clean, organize, declutter, give her a better place to live.

The stuff that inspires me to create hasn't changed. Above all, "love" inspires me. I say "love" in quotes for one reason in particular:

I've never loved anyone like I love my husband. What I feel for him is perhaps the most genuine feelings of affection I've ever felt for anyone, and yet his presence in my life has probably only really inspired a handful of songs, compared to the dozens upon dozens I've written for all the other ones - whatever it must have been that I felt for them.

But ... yeah. "Love" inspires me. Love between others, misunderstood love, complicated love. Angry love. Stupid love.

People are idiots when they think they're in love. They do stupid things. Perhaps what's more stupid are the plethora of things that they don't do.

I'm also inspired by platonic relationships. I'm inspired by the fact that, as a girl - a burgeoning woman at 26, I guess - I still don't understand exactly why girl friendships seem to be so much more egg-shelly than guy relationships. I mean, I have my theories, but they're just theories.

I'm inspired by people ... interacting. Why we are how we are. Why we do what we do. Why not some other way? What's the worst that could possibly happen?

Anyway ... that was all an incredibly awful segue to my main point: I know I'm supposed to live a creative life, but I don't really know what that entails.

I'm terrified that if I start working full-time as a librarian on my master's degree, my financial worries will be quelled right along with what's left of this creative drive I still have.

In my life, I have to write more music. I have to write a film. I have to write some short stories. I have to do all these things. I need to take more risks. I was never so afraid to just do that which comes naturally to me as I am today.

I'm all ready to rip this entry apart because I don't feel like it's particularly well contained, but I'm not. I'm just going to keep drinking my iced coffee and try to be happy that I wrote.

"Mommy" culture

Mommy culture is weird to me. At times I wish I were more knowledgeable or articulate so that I might have an easier time expressing what I mean with sentiments like that. But it is. It's weird to me.
I don't understand why I feel the need to question a woman exclaiming something like, "Oh, that's just life as a mom!"
Just ... "life as a mom."
Maybe it's the fact that people tout the marked difference between BEFORE kid and AFTER kid for more than the simple rite of passage that it is.
And "mommy-blogging" ... that in and of itself is just a whole other thing. It's a sea of women looking for their fifteen minutes, really, is what it is.
It's one thing to feel and write, in my opinion. It's another thing entirely to ... see, I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with this. I guess it's because I don't see any inherent problems with any of it ... so why, frankly, do I just feel like I wish there were less of it?
In an ideal Melissa world, we would all just be. I don't like to associate with Mommy Culture because I don't want to be anything but me. And I am so much more than just a mom. I've sought my identity, mostly, in spiritual things first ... I feel, deeply, that I was meant to be exactly who I am, where I am, in this moment. I try not to cling too hard to any one thing. It's failed me too often in the past.
I am just Melissa. I'm simple. I like things that are simple and that emphasize the tiny, beautiful nuances of life that often go overlooked. I like films with beautiful stories that can convince me they're real, at least somewhere. I like books that test me. I like people that don't try too hard at anything that doesn't matter. I'm simple, and I just think we should do things from the heart, do things that make us happy, and give as much of ourselves to others as we can afford.
You know, I'm also married and I have a daughter. That's awesome. But my husband and my daughter aren't me. They're things that I love and that make me very happy, but I hope to never confuse them with me. Does that make sense?