This morning a vicious migraine clamped down on my temples and my skull has begun to throb with its own version of Drums, drums in the deep. Probably it comes as much from suppressed tears as it does from the usual apparently random causes that precipitate these lovely headaches. I've had a much better week this week, but hope and cheer and determination sometimes collapse into the underlying sorrow just a little bit, and this sorrow has a particular external, as opposed to general biochemical, source.
I've worked really hard not to think about it, to the point where I even watch episodes of The Office in the mornings while I get ready for work in order to fill the silence which would open up room in my head for thinking about things I don't want to think about. I don't feel like crying and I don't feel like feeling sad. Unfortunately I know enough to know that the crying and the sadness will out in the end whether I want them to or not, but I wish I could just skip that stupid stage and move on to serenity.
Oh well. I did get a little watery the other day driving home in the downpour when I finally seized all my courage and turned off the music to face the silence and listen for God in the rain that washed over the car. And found, sort of like Jonah did, that the still small voice said, Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. At that point I felt my face contort and I sniffled, "Okay. Okay..." because oftentimes comfort allows the safety one needs in order to relax the tight reins holding back the whelming emotions.
As a sort of backhanded ray of sunshine, though, this bit of unpleasantness stems from actual grief, not depression. The devilfish has not died, but it has loosened its stranglehold and retreated under a rock for the time being. I might not feel great at the moment, but the not-greatness reflects something that everyone undergoes at some point, and while I feel about as much desire as I usually do to let people in on it, I don't feel as isolated from humanity in this kind of unhappiness.
For my newest favorite coping mechanism, I have begun to take a strong measure of delight in looking like a million bucks at all possible times. Over the past year I have pieced together a theory of beauty which asserts that real beauty, far from intimidating and undermining others' sense of worth, comforts, heals and restores personhood to people. God created beauty to bring joy to others, and God created woman as the height of creation's beauty. In our vain, shallow, cutthroat social view of beauty we tend, I think, to lose sight of beauty's designed purpose. I have noticed, from both the giving and the receiving perspectives, that when a beautiful person shows you kindness, you feel deeply valued, perhaps particularly because with our social esteem of appearance as a power-driven status symbol we experience more cruelty than kindness in the hands of a bloodless beauty designed to steal, kill and destroy.
I don't worship at that altar. I like for people to feel better after talking to me. Also I take satisfaction in applying my makeup just so for the best effect, selecting pieces for the perfect outfit, and, lately, styling my hair. I only recently discovered that my hair has harbored a hidden waviness most of my life, so this summer has seen me sporting waves and curls as I never knew I could before; and today I decided to play with the flatiron for thick, straight hair, with pleasing results. Four years of growing out my hair have brought it to the bottom line of my shoulder blades, and, with all of my new products to coax it into meek submission, I can finally enjoy wearing it down.
In addition to great makeup, clothes and hair, I have discovered the fun in French-tipping my toenails. I hit upon this idea a couple of weeks ago when the anxiety made my hands tremble and I needed to find an occupation for them lest they turn destructive. I wanted something that would keep them busy, something that would require focus, and boy did my toenails need some work, and the usual fire engine red had lost its appeal....oh!
So I bought a little French manicure kit and spent an evening talking to Hillori and working on my toenails. (I guess this makes it a French pedicure. I hate nail polish of any kind on my fingernails; they feel like they can't breathe.) I adored the natural, elegant look and slightly muted naughty feel of naked-looking feet that resulted.
But of all these new attentions to detail -- or perhaps because of them, in combination with learning to see myself rightly in therapy -- I most enjoy my gradual acceptance of my body shape. From my adolescence I have held my sister in my mind as the definition of body-type beauty, especially since everyone worshiped her appearance, which pretty much doomed me to a self-image of hideousness because her little bird-bones allowed her a willowiness that I with my solid German bones of steel could never hope to achieve, I who skipped willowy and went straight to womanly in a sudden flowering of curves at the age of twelve.
So for twenty-six years (okay, fourteen, if you want real specificity) I thought of myself as heavy and plain because I couldn't weigh ninety-nine pounds like my sister. But over the last year I have begun to remove those lenses and look at myself objectively; and objectively I bear an hourglass figure in almost perfect proportions. I have curves where I should have curves and a well-defined waist, and my height makes me look slender, with legs that go on forever. Essentially I have your classic Grecian statue figure, which the modeling world holds in contempt, but it suits me.
No one can ever call me skinny. My breasts and hips and thighs and rear and little bit of tummy don't apologize for themselves. But "slender" applies, and if the catcalls and double-takes I get walking down the street provide any kind of measure (however dubious a privilege), I look just fine. Everyone I know calls me beautiful -- more to my face than I ever recall hearing before -- and in this instance I believe I must trust -- and want to trust, and have begun to trust -- the popular opinion. (In truth I really do think of myself as beautiful, for and to and by myself -- but the context of me with other people has caused a lot of the persisting self-negativity.)
I don't expect to arrive at perfect self-confidence overnight; I still experience that jolt of guilt and shame and envy when a nearly two-dimensional girl walks by in designer clothes that flaunt every bony angle. But I do see progress in myself -- a lessening of guilt and shame and envy, a growing gladness to look the way I look as naturally as I look it, an increasing delight to fit the way I do into my own skin.
I did not post any of this in search of compliments. I still shift uncomfortably when anyone compliments me, though I have consciously begun to undertake a better acceptance of praise, which probably means a better acceptance of self. If God delights in me (as He says He does in Zephaniah 3:17), how can I tell Him, "No, You shouldn't, You've got me all wrong"? I still get humility mixed up with self-deprecation, but at least I know that now.
So the progress pleases me, though I have a long road ahead of me still. But I don't have to "fix" everything, or even anything, before whatever next step toward my destiny lies in my future. I don't have to heal all the way or make myself perfect (I know, I couldn't anyway, but I have always demanded perfection of myself, so learning to give myself grace takes time and requires a lot of disciplined reminders) before God will let me proceed to the next level. I get to move forward as simply Sarah, whatever that means.
Meanwhile, a memo apparently went 'round last night declaring today Needy Whiny Demanding Hold-My-Hand Stupid Client Day, and all of our clients, past and present, have acted accordingly from 8:30 a.m. when I walked through the door until now. After work I plan to drive straight home and down a dirty martini (which I just learned to make last weekend -- with gin, of course, as the foundational ingredient for a true martini, and dry vermouth and olive brine. And three olives. I always drink martinis with three olives).
You will notice that, of all the sentences comprising this post, only this one in any way utilizes any form of the verb "to be," and that as a direct object and not a verb. I did this for two reasons: to prove that I could, and as a structural and tonal symbol of the tight control with which I have bound my emotional state over the last month. If it sounds stiff, formal, and a little unnatural, so have I sounded, and felt, though I've started to unbend.
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