all about perspective

for five months now, since i gave birth, my face loo0ks different to me. every time. every way. i thought it was my hair so i cut it. when that didnt work, i went to another stylist. got new color in addition to the cut that time. neither brought my face back. when this kept happening eachtime i looked in the mirror for a period long enough to make me recognize this wasnt going to go away, i attributed it to being tired and wearing it on my face.i determined it to be age. i then added to that that my body had been through the most demanding and physically taxing experience of its lifetime, one that was so big that my body would forever be different, in every way. i then added to he mix that maybe the stress got to me and it made my face long where these was boyancy. no explination has succeeded in letting me see through it to my face underneath. no matter what I have thought or done, my face, the way i saw it, the way I recognized it, has not been reflected to me both in mirrors and pictures since i had the baby.

there is an identity in the face and its totally based on your sense of self and what you identify yourself to be. I saw beauty and youth. I now see big pores, dull tone, frown shape, roundness of bloating, age. No sparkle. No radiance. Im totally serious. When I think about it, the very thought of the whole thing is covered in a shroud of "jesus, thats sad". I instantly associated the unfamiliarity of it with negative -that whatever change I was seeing was a manifestation of something bad. therefore, something bads must me dominating the tone of life. its where I put the emphasis. im still looking for this to be normal and comfortable and its not. there is a certain sorrow i carry when I think that I have stepped to the next level of mother in the woman trinity. why sorrow? crone is next. why am i sad to have graduated to maiden versus celebrate the dynamic power I gained in the transition to mother? that i earned my step up. why is there loneliness and isolation in my step versus a strengthening of my union to the lifesource and unity. wtf? this quite a mindblowing revelation i have stumbled upon.

the answers to all of these questions are laden in self deprecation. the associations are not at all what my feminist and enlightened self knows to be true. the whole thing is very subconscious and interesting.

i have been trying to desperately to define myself. to make an image to morph in to that will declare me a powerful and lush mother. i feel that ive been working against myself. it still all feels so unfamiliar; i dont know which direction to take, i just keep spinning. i freak out with each disagreement with joe. we cant seem to get it together. we do in theory but then we get tripped up on execution. my body isnt the one i had before delivery. nothing is the same!

it cant be true though. the grey feeling in the unfamiliarity, the feeling of foreboding that comes with each fight- of misery and isolation and the loss of love in the future. totally inane. the unfamiliarity must have something bright in it. something that makes it an adventure and journey. is this what being scared feels like? every woman i know who does not have a baby seems so whimsical, so young, so tight, so opposite of me, so what I was.

the image i have of me now, the one i see myself as has long bright red wavy hair and hips and cleavage and is dancing. shes older and so pretty with her pretty daughter at her side. dancing. yellow gold backround. brick red pencil skirt. tank top. flat tummy. colors and art on her arms. big red flower tucked behnd her right ear. husband next to her. all happy.

I have heard women say babies, girls, in particular, drain your looks. that has to be bullshit and some shitty mother daughter fraudina thing to breed a sense of competition and angst among the closest of feminine based ties.

there is conflict among these notions but tied by something. i think i am on to something that is worth exploring.