Something I've Feared

This weekend something terrifying happened. I had been dreading it for a while now. It was so all-consuming that it may have actually made me sick. My entire life so far has been leading up to this point.

What is this huge landmark? What could have me so worked up? I turned thirty this weekend and it's a landmark I wasn't ready for.

Most people have told me thirty isn't a big deal. Thirty just means you're actually wise enough to be taken seriously in most circles. While you're truly an adult at twenty-one in this country, you're not expected to be mature until you hit thirty, at least. Many career oriented people are just settling down, getting married, and having kids. It's certainly not a mark of being old, not anymore. Even so, my life isn't where I expected it to be in the least.

Hitting thirty was a landmark of all the things that didn't go the way I had planned. I never had my wedding. I'm getting a divorce, a statistic I swore I'd never become. I'm living in Texas, a state I swore I'd never live in. I've given birth to kids by two different fathers, something that was fine for other people but I never thought I could cope with. I'm not even close to being a famous dancer, designer, costumer, or scientist. I'm not finished with my training in Dianic Wicca, and I never did register for a Reiki attunemeny. I had all these dreams, but now they're all washed away by the flood rains that are drowning my life.

You know what's so funny about that? It's taken me until the day after to realize I just don't care. I've got other things to think about, like wanting to try for just one more girl before the factory closes down for good. There's no hurry on that. I've still got five years. It doesn't seem like long at all, but at the same time, it seems so far away. I still want to dance, but I'm not terribly drawn to being noteworthy. I just want to enjoy it. I want to focus on working as a healer, something I've been drawn to for years and it's never to late to go back to. I have these great visions that involve me being happy, not some huge goal. I want to share my gifts and embrace the beauty of the world around me.

If someone had told me ten years ago that I would be this hippie, unschooling mom with piercings, a massive butterfly tattoo in bright colors, and crazy dreads, I never would have believed it. I wasn't even considering being a mom back then. I was soon to be engaged and dreamed of raisong horses, Gypsy Vanners. I swore I'd never get a tattoo. After two failed tries at ear piercing and once on my nose, I swore I was done with piercings. Dreads were probably pretty disgusting because you couldn't wash your hair. The whole stretched ears thing was just as gross. The clothes I wear now would shock me because I was supposed to only dress fashionably by now and always wear makeup. After all, women my age are too old to be attractive nayurally, so would say my twenty year old self. I would never have tried Indian food, or half the other new foods I've tried. I always thought women like me were so beautiful and incredible. They were my idols, but I never imagined being one.

Here I am, just after my thirtieth birthday, realizing my life is anything but what I expected. I've accomplished becoming a person I never dreamed I'd be, yet always adored. I just thought that life wasn't for me. My friends aren't the high society elite I expected, but instead they are real, beautiful, genuine people. I've got beautiful kids and I'm lucky to have them.

For a landmark birthday, this has been pretty good. I'm feeling pretty confident from here on out. It may not be perfect, but it's going to be fun. It's time to let go of my attachment to perfection and enjoy it. Life is for living, right?

Preconceived Notions and Perfection

So all the mosaics went up and the kids are happily able to display their art.  I have to admit, I used to say I never wanted to be one of those moms that had their kids' artwork everywhere.  I had some strange image in my mind of having a house with all the right decor and everything looking just so.  There were going to be couches, end tables, and a television stand in my living room.  The dining room would have a fancy cabinet just for dishes.  The kitchen would be fairly barren aside from appliances.  The bedrooms would have their own perfectionist style to them, my daughter with a girlish metal framed bed in white with a white matching dresser and night stand set, perhaps a matching white desk to work on.  There would be pretty curtains that would match the linens on her bed.  My older boy would have his own room done up in something he enjoyed, probably in natural woods with some kind of theme like space.  The baby would have a room all done up in animals.  Their rooms would all match up just so.  My own room would have a beautiful matching bedroom set.  I had all these great ideas, ideas that wouldn't allow for a child's artwork.  It would take away from the fancy perfectionist look of the whole house.

Looking at my son's bird mosaic sitting up on the wall, I've come to realize that I've been missing out so much in life.  My attachment to perfectionism has limited myself and will undoubtedly be limiting my children as well.  I shouldn't forbid them from displaying their hard worked on projects throughout the house because they're not good enough by the standards I would hold an adult too!  Of course I can't expect my daughter to paint a masterpiece!  She's only seven!  I can't expect my son to create some beautiful drawing worthy of a museum!  He's not even four!  I can't even live up to those expectations!  If I were to continue on that vein, I'd never have artwork on my walls, not ever!  I don't even have a single photo on display.  It makes me realize just how impersonal my house is.  Even if I lived up to those home decorating standards of perfection, yes, my house would have a dramatic sense of style and would be something to put in a magazine, but who needs a show house?  Wouldn't it be better to have a home that looks lived in?  Isn't it better to show some sense of personality, to allow for things that my perfectionist side wants to rebel against?


I think this is one of the conflicts my partner and I have had.  He wants to put up band posters, movie posters, license plates, and other things on the wall.  I look at it all up there and want to scream.  It looks like a teenager's room, not an adult's living space.  Yes, we have my masks up on the wall, but now I also have a set of fairy wings I wore for Halloween a couple years back and a couple butterfly ornaments.  We've got a beautiful dragon picture that I bought years ago, but we've also got a stack of stuffed pandas that my partner gave me and a miniature from his favorite video game series.  The wall next to our television has our game controllers and accessories for EA Sports Active hung there for easy access and to get them neatly out of the way.  We've got pink Christmas lights strung up around the ceiling.  I have to admit, it kind of looks tacky, but at the same time, it's got a lot of expression.  You certainly can't say our home doesn't have personality!


I've come to realize that as much as I love my idea of self expression and have no problems dying my hair wild colors, I really have this sense of conformity.  I have this sense of how things are supposed to look.  I can't just wear clothes I like.  They have to fit with an aesthetic style and they have to match with my hair color and style of the season.  I can't just put whatever I want up on my walls.  It has to fit some preconceived notion of the way things are supposed to look.  I can't be happy with crazy, miss-matched stuff.  Everything is supposed to fit into a particular aesthetic.


I guess one thing I've learned from my children's art is that I really have to release myself from the expectations others have put on me.  Go crazy every once in a while!  Be bold!  Be dramatic!  Throw a random splash of color into things!  Be free to clash!  Who cares what the rest of the world thinks?

Dreadies, Month Two!

So, we've made it two months now.  This is the longest I've kept any of these hair styles lately.  My braids lasted maybe three weeks.  My woolies lasted a month.  Now, just in time for month two, I've put the woolies back in.  I can't promise how long they'll stay.  I can only hope that they help encourage the dreading process, bu there's no way to be sure.  At the very least, my hair should dread better because I'm not messing with it all the time.

I have to admit, I faced some challenges.  I almost took the dreadies out all together.  The balance of what I washed them with was making them want to come loose.  I couldn't get the balance right.  My hair was over-conditioned, which was completely going against the goal of it all.  Now I'm starting to get the results I want, but it's going to be a while yet.  I don't know whether the wool will help it out or hold it back, but I do know it's keeping my hair bound up so I can't mess with the process.  It's also massively extending the length of my hair, so I'm getting a chance to have actual length again!  I can actually wear my hair up now!

The wool won't stay in long, this much I know.  It will be too hot before long and I'll have to take them out.  Summer doesn't seem like a great time to wear wool on my head.  Texas summers are hot enough without help!  I can't imagine having wool to top it off!  Still, it will give me another month or two without messing with my hair too much, and hopefully that month or two will be enough for my hair to really start to lock up.

It's not going to be long before I'm debuting the summer season with some solidly started dreadlocks.  Short dreads are supposedly so much faster to stop shrinking and start growing.  They set up faster so you can move on to normal dread life.  We'll see how true that is.

My hair is really starting to get long too.  You can see it in my bangs.  They weren't near that long when I started all of this.  They might not have grown at some insane rate, but it's nice to see my hair is actually making progress from where it was.  Almost one year ago I shaved my head, and in that year, so much has changed.  It's nice to know that my hair has done nothing but change colors and grow!