Reflecting on the year

Isn't it funny how little things like hair mistakes define us internally?  And it doesn't matter how much effort people put into telling you how much they like you, if you don't like yourself, it isn't going to mean a thing coming from others.

I have spent that past couple of weeks really hating myself.  For those of you that know me in person, I really struggle with depression and I'm not ashamed of that and I'm not going to try and hide it, but this past month has been really, really hard.

And the fact that I really don't like how I look physically has made that even harder.  I've never been happy with my body, which is why I've been working out a lot this past year and really putting a lot of effort into making myself fit and healthy, but I usually had my hair and my face to fall back on.  I'm not saying I have the greatest face, but with longer hair it at least helped console me into being semi-okay with my less than perfect body.

Lately though, after what I'm going to call "my bang job from the hockey stick land", I have really despised my appearance. Now I know I did a big, long, wordy and needless blog about how I was all happy with being ugly and stuff like that, but I'm noticing so much more just how much we as humans deliberately hate on ourselves. The weirdest part for me? It makes me feel better!

How messed up have we become as a society that when we deliberately say things to hurt our inner selves and feel good about it afterwards? It's like we enjoy punishing ourselves in the most demeaning way. I would never talk to anyone the way I talk to myself, so why then do I talk to myself this way?

I recently saw this video about this very problem and I think it helps exemplify how unhealthy we have become as a society, I'm not necessarily talking about how the modeling industry wants a certain body type, or what have you, because honestly, I have no huge problem with the modeling industry, at least not a problem that I'm going to talk about today.  What I have a beef with is how we have learned to punish ourselves to make ourselves feel better because we think we're ugly therefore we are worthy of punishment in the first place.  When did we decide it was okay to deem psychological punishment appropriate because our subjective opinion dictates such?

I'm sure everyone has heard this before, but not having the security blanket in what I considered my most attractive asset, I've really become aware of just how much I hated myself and how much I insulted myself.  It's really been made clear this past week especially.  When the one thing that we hold on to, a temporal thing, is removed from us, we don't default to adapting, we don't try to make it better initially, we don't recognize how unimportant this is to our eternal souls, instead, we resort to hate.  Hate, hurt, contempt.  Like it was our faults that we look the way we do, assuming we have the power to deem worth through physical looks, assuming that we know what beauty even is. How backwards. How upside down.

My goal for these coming months is to really focus on not what I look like physically, but what I would like spiritually.  I don't want to be known as that discontent person who is never happy, which I know that is more often than not how I act.  I think, silly as it sounds, I'm going to aim for basics again; I'm going to grow my hair all out, no layers, no bangs, and while that may not make sense to, say, you guys out there who aren't reading this, but for some reason I'm symbolistic to a ridiculous level and going to back to a style that doesn't require newfangled-ness I think will really help me get back to a none crazy level with fashion and looks.  I've never been one to try and be up to date with the fashion, but I don't think people realize how time consuming and soul sucking it can be, even at the level that I do it.

So, this is nothing more than a long ramble, and I will try to think of more interesting things to talk about, but right now, this is what is important to me, so let the anti self-hate and hair growing campaign begin!