Week 10: Oh. My. Goddessness.

Hello everyone! I've missed seeing you guys and having our in-class discussions. The forum posts are great and all, but it's just not the same! (Maybe it's because of the lack of surprise candy...) I know we are all managing the best we can, and I am so proud of all of us for sticking with everything during this crazy time! From browsing the post titles, I can safely assume that a lot of you are not really doing okay, and I am completely with you on that, but we've got this! In that fighting spirit and in contrast to the sad boi posts I've been seeing (in addition to my messy and depressy forum comments oops), I am going to do something scary and brave and different on here! I am going to actually write my "goddess list" for this week's post. Please know that this will be incredibly painful for me, and if this blog post stops abruptly like mid-sentence, assume that I have passed out on the floor. If any of you saw my comment to the "goddess list" forum post, I basically said "sike nah" to the idea and responded, "actually I am garbage." But I will try this, because I know I (as a proud pessimist) could use some positivity, and this blog could too! 

Here goes nothing... 

1. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! 

2. Okay, now that I have gotten that over with, let's see. I ~suppose~ I am a good writer, at least when I'm not inserting gifs and made-up words into my writing. However, I am now debating this, because it is extremely hard to write and concentrate with the Michael Scott "No" gif on repeat right above what I'm typing. Maybe that wasn't such a good writing decision. 

3. I am an overachiever (but also a procrastinator?), which hurts my soul and my sleep schedule a bit (i.e. writing this at 5am), but the overachieving part comes in handy when doing assignments, papers, and projects. My work is always my very best and as "perfect" as my crazy perfectionist ass can get it. 

4. My singing voice has been described as "angelic" and "pure," which is everything I'm not, but oh well. I forget the fact that I have a nice voice in the music department sometimes, because I am forced to sing a lot of opera arias and classical music that just doesn't fit my voice. I am more of a folk and jazz singer, but no one really knows that. I was going to sing a solo, "The Scarlet Tide" from Cold Mountain, and accompany myself by piano for a concert this semester, but alas, my bad luck has struck again! Ugh, POSITIVE VIBESSSS! 

5. Before quarantine times, I carried three jobs and 22 credit hours with ~grace~, which can be translated to in my pajamas in class and not GAF (giving a f--art (yes, I am a child)). Plus, I am MADE for this quarantine life, hunny. You thought I was lazy, but I was just breaking in my pajamas. ;) 

6. I am a proud mother to a hairy child named Pepper. She is potty-trained, eats well, and her head is much smaller than her body. I allow her to be authentically herself. She is all kinds of sassy and sways when she walks, exuding feline confidence with each step. I aspire to be like her honestly, so I'm so proud to have raised such a fearless woman. Plus, she's like also simultaneously a bat and a dog, so she's wonderfully unique. 

7. I have "pianist fingers," which is cool because the rest of me is quite sausage-like. No self-hate, just spitting facts here haha. (Thanks, Viv, for the idea btw!) 

8. I can no longer see Michael Scott, and my brain has resumed optimal 2% functioning. Let's see...I can be witty? 

9. According to one of my Food Lion managers, I am "the best closer ever." She then followed it up with, "I know it's because you're literally OCD, but I love you for it." Come to Food Lion on a Thursday or Friday night after 10pm (except this week because I had requested off for concerts that I no longer get to be in OOF), and you'll see me scurrying around the registers sweeping, arranging and facing sodas, and stocking each register with a pen and counterfeit detector marker. Everything would be organized the same way at each register, because I'd literally die otherwise. 

10. Lastly, I am a goddess, because even through all of the self-loathing and societal conditioning to hate my body, I am still able to come up with a list of positive things about myself and that's POWERFUL. ~iF i CaN dO iT, yOu cAN tOo!~ 

Better For My Daughters

Disclaimer: I am not pregnant nor do I have children. I didn't want the title to confuse anybody :--).

While watching Baby Cobra, I was thinking to myself how amazing Ali Wong looked in her skin-tight dress while 7 and a half months pregnant. My next thought was “I could never do that.” I have felt insecure with my body for as long as I can remember. No matter how skinny or chubby I am, I still have the same feeling of “I can’t let people see what shape is underneath my clothes.” When I was a size medium, I wore a large. Now that I’m a large, I wear an XL. BUT RECENTLY… I became tired of it. I started asking myself why. Why was I so afraid that someone would be able to make out the shape of my hips? Why did it feel like a cardinal sin for my shirt to touch my stomach? Why was I so worried about it?

I thought back to growing up and getting ready with my mom in the mornings. She would put on a shirt and say something like, “ugh you can see my fat rolls in this. Ew, I look so gross. I can’t wear this into public.” For as long as I can remember, my mom has always put herself down. If someone compliments her hair, she’ll reply with “really? I feel wind-blown.” If they compliment her shoes, “I just found these on a rack somewhere for cheap, I don’t even like them, really.” If they compliment her shirt, “Oh don’t look at it, I look so big and bloated right now.” 

As I grow older, I find myself repeating a lot of those phrases. I find myself blowing off compliments and turning them into self-deprecating statements instead. I realized I’d rather not have anyone comment on any part of my appearance at all. I felt uncomfortable saying “thank you” in response to a compliment because the woman I looked up to my whole life never said that. I started dressing plainly and in way-too-big clothes in high school so nobody would want to compliment me. Most of my wardrobe is gray, black, white, and navy blue. I don’t do my hair and makeup. I don’t want to risk someone telling me I look nice because I don’t know what to say back. 

Recently, I started making a conscious effort to stop this behavior. I started practicing saying “thank you.” A great way to reply to compliments, I’ve found, is to compliment them back. So now, I put on makeup when I feel like it. I dress up when I feel like it. I don’t want to adopt my mom’s habit because I don’t want to pass it on. I don’t want my daughters to see me speak down to myself and think it is normal. I want to be better for my daughters. I want them to be comfortable in their own skin. I want to be comfortable in MY skin. I want to wear a latex dress when I’m pregnant.

Week 8: Tyrion Lannister and Self-Deprecation

I have never seen or read Game of Thrones, but I love this quote. This quote comes from one of the very few snatches of the hit HBO show that I happened to see when my older sister was watching it. I was reminded of these words in class last week when we were talking about the pros and cons of self-deprecation. We talked about how self-deprecation is a defense mechanism. You should say that thing about yourself first before someone else mocks you for it, because it’s just easier that way. It is much easier to mock yourself than listen to someone else mock you.

Tyrion’s quote struck me as an expansion on this idea. Though Tyrion isn’t necessarily referring to self-deprecation, his words still define the idea of beating someone else to the punch by pointing out your own flaws first. Tyrion refers more to self-acceptance than self-deprecation here. He tells Jon Snow—an illegitimate child (is he illegitimate, or was that disproved in the final season? Oh well. He was considered illegitimate at the time of this quote)—that if you “wear [who you are] like armor” then “it can never be used to hurt you”. Tyrion’s quote urges you to accept and own your flaws. Don’t put yourself down for being imperfect, show the world you are stronger than those who try to define you based on your so-called faults.

This analysis puts a remarkably positive spin on a very violent and dark television show, but I believe it works. I think of this quote every time we talk about self-deprecation in class, and I’m starting to hate self-deprecation. At the beginning of this course, I loved that type of humor. I thought it was a humbling tactic comedians used to seem down-to-earth. But, after watching Nanette, and learning about what a toll self-deprecation takes on a comedian, I can’t stomach it anymore.  It’s one thing to use your flaws as armor, and not be ashamed of any aspect of yourself, as Tyrion suggests, but it is another thing entirely to present your flaws for the world to see, and invite anyone and everyone to laugh at your imperfections. Hannah Gadsby said that personal humiliation is not the same thing as humility, and I agree.

My sisters still enjoy self-deprecating humor. I’ve been trying to convince them that it’s not so funny if you see it for what it really is. My siblings and I basically communicate through self-deprecation.  I braided one of my younger sister’s hair the other day, and when I asked her what she thought of it, she looked in the mirror and said, “I like the braid, but it’s too pretty for my face”. All of my sisters take part in putting themselves down, and I hate listening to it. Every time they say something like “I look like an overstuffed sausage in this dress” or compare themselves to the ugliest character in a movie, I won’t laugh anymore. Maybe then, they’ll come to terms with what that constant humiliation is doing to them. 

**Shout-out to Aneyla for covering self-deprecation in her post last week! Your post inspired me to do the same**