Colleen called me on it this weekend.
I’ve been masquerading as something I’m really not entirely. I have a perfectly crafted, rarely unwavering exterior that cracks only under the pressure of performance. You may see me on the street with my gothy, crazed hair, the stud in my chin and ink on various surfaces, plain teeshirt concealing boobs and stretch marks, loose jeans ankle-cuffing my chucks, blowing smoke out the side of my thin lips. It would lead you to assume a lot of things about me.
Standoffish. Closed in. One of the boys. Untouchable. Pissed off.
But under that shell, the surface that’s so safe and ironically, what seems to attract so many, there’s a hidden identity you have probably never (and likely will never) meet.
I am a girly girl.
Through and through, if I had a million hours in a day, disposable income to devote to the pursuit of pink and curves, I would have an entirely different persona on display.
That girl standing there smoking would have changed brands, in the least, if she was a smoker at all. There’s something sexy about a bed-headed woman with black-lined lids exhaling a plume of smoke – but I don’t know if I could fit that into the actual me. That’s more the current externalized visage – but no, replace the word sexy with down-trodden.
Instead of manic bed-head, barely contained into a bun at the top of my head, I’d have cascading curls, shining in the sunlight. Dark auburn, without much of a trace of goth, my hair would bring to mind 40s movie starlet.
I’d keep the piercing, but consider a cubic zirconia stone. I’d still show most of the tattoos, but I’d also have a few softer ones, that weren’t so comprised of harsh black lines filled in with more black. I’d have gotten the one I planned on my left ankle so many years back – a miasma of purples and blues, based on Van Gogh’s celestial body in Starry Night. I’d have a bracelet of violets.
A carelessly put together day would still call for slingbacks and a pencil skirt, a crisp white wrap-around blouse would make severe the slingbacks and lace underthings. The diamond solitaire necklace would glitter and dazzle. But on a more effort-filled day, I would be pure chiffon and cashmere, a-lined and flowy and hugging curves. I would look like a really expensive perfume smells.
Every day would be an exercise in smoothness, because to me, the really deep inside of me me, girly goes with uncrinkled foreheads, moonlight reflecting off of bared shoulders and a peaceful walk on air. Girly means giggling softly and being able to wink subtly without looking as if I might be having a stroke.
My apartment, oh, how gorgeous it would be. Flowers everywhere, clean and like breathing in love, down to a pink-green-chocolate colour scheme. There’d be chenille and velvet, woven throws to make warm when winter had chilled to the bone. Black and white photographs would be matted and framed in black wood, glass candle holders would adorn every surface and the bathroom would be gracefully staged for a daily bubble bath.
You know why I don’t do all that?
It’s so much work, thinking about it. Visualizing the prize, the final moment, I smile. Imagine the what ifs. Picture my everyday bliss.
And then I shove that fantasy back down into the dark hole that I, in turn, project on the outside. It’s so much effort, the perfecting, the acceptance of curves, refinement, alone, that I’d be too aware if I wasn’t acing it. If it wasn’t perfect. I’d be so much more shallowly displayed, and I would feel as if I’d failed at life, when a blemish came to town and my crows’ feet showed.
I mean. Prize example? If I hadn’t beat the shit out of my body for so long, instead of being shaped like a breasted Kate Moss, I’d be sitting here in Scarlett Johansson form. That, in its essence, is the picture of girly, lacking awkwardly sharp elbows and knobby knees, begging for silk and satin and lace.
That would mean allowing myself to fatten up and then not only embracing it, but allowing it display to the world. Now, if I’m feeling a bit dodgy in the waistline, I wear the really baggy size four jeans – the concept of loving my shape in a 6 or higher is something so foreign
(and yes, I feel like a dink for using numbers with this example. I’m sorry, everyone who wears a size 6 or higher. I still love you. I just couldn’t love me.)
that it seems impossible.
But god, how I’d have to rein in the reins. I’d have to turn all of my control into controlling the control. Does that make sense?
Plus, I’d have to shave my legs a lot more often.
