Everyone compliments my hair. It always happens and no one is immune to it. I have that kind of hair that almost everyone appreciates. It is long, a sort of goldy blond, and lightly curly. As well as soft and shiny. The thing is that my hair isn't just my fashion choice but a silent reminder to myself every day I look in the mirror.
It is a reminder of the years I spent feeling ashamed of how I looked because I didn't want to be girly, because I didn't want to just be a mother or a wife or wear skirts and play with dolls. My father expected certain actions and certain ideals out of me and I could never deliver. He wanted me to be quiet, meek, speak when spoken to, sing well, wear dresses and make up and never desire to go fishing or camping or play in the mud. My dad would make my brother take out the trash and I would do the dishes and clean the floors. But it wasn't just him. If it were, I might have been able to ignore it but it was everyone around me telling me that I wasn't enough of a "girl". I was too fat, too wide, too boyish, too tough, too dirty, too introverted.
There were times, yes, where I felt the need to be girly or to act feminine but I shunned those moments, felt ashamed of them because I was tom-boy and I didn't give a half fuck about what "they" wanted me to do. I killed the feminine half of myself because I felt, more than anything, that "they" were all so very wrong about who I had to be. I'd always cut my hair short and wear hoodies and trousers and I hated being called beautiful (I still do; I'm not beautiful I'm handsome and very fucking proud of that.) Looking back now I know that this was my self-hatred shining through. Because I couldn't be just masculine or just feminine. Because I was both and I was ashamed of both halves but I found the feminine side of me weak and I couldn't bare showing it.
So I put up with the tauntings (dyke-shehulk-butch-bitch) and I sliced that bit of me that was feminine off and I lived feeling like some half-Jack beast unfit for the term "she."
But when I grew into myself and out of this idea that I had to be what everyone said I realized that there was nothing wrong in wanting some days to be masculine and other days to be feminine. There was nothing wrong with me but I wasn't free to be who I wanted to be. My family wouldn't accept me and in some cases would not allow me to be who I really felt I was if they knew the entirety of who I identified as. I was dependent on them and my survival rested in their monstrous hands.
When I realized this- that I could never be who I felt I was around them- I took a pair of scissors to my hair. I cut my hair and after I sat there and I stared at the strands scattered all around me and I hated them. I hated my hair and I hated what it stood for. Girls can dress like boys or have short hair like boys but if you do then be prepared for everyone to treat you like some halfling hunchback and not the Disney one with the gargoyle friends and the gypsy darling.
I gathered up my locks of hair, pale blond crescents that I hated so so so very much, and I promised myself. I promised myself that I would not cut my hair again until I was free; until I could sit down and cut it how I liked and not have someone impose their own standards and ideals on my living. That is, I would not cut my hair until I cut my ties and could live independent of anyone else's support.
It's been two years since I left my family's house. It's been three years since I cut my hair. And every day I look into the mirror and I see how society will hate me for being different. They will hate me for not being heterosexual, for not being one or the other, for not being consistent with their ideals, for not being a woman with a vagina but for being a human with a body. It hasn't gone away. It's still here. Because of my masculine way of dressing most days, my unlady-like behavior, and other parts of me that are not specifically feminine I am still assumed to be a butch lesbian. And while I find there is nothing wrong with being butch or being lesbian it's the fact that people decide this from looking at me that I hate.
It has served another purpose as well, however. It has gotten me to see the good qualities in my body. My hair is very beautiful. I will never deny it. It shines like goldy sheets of silk and curls just softly enough that it reminds me of pictures of the ocean's waves. I love my hair. It's beautiful and through it I have learned that I am not an ugly leper. I may not be the current standard of beauty but my handsomeness is more than enough for me. I love my wide shoulders and my broad chest, my shapely legs and my wide hips. I love my plump ass and my curves. I love the body I have. All of it. Even the hair in my arm pits and the pubes on my groin. And it is thanks to my hair that I love how I am.
But even still, it is that reminder that I am still not free; that I am still dependent upon people who would hate me if they knew me. I want my escape. I want my freedom but I am not yet able to reach it. But I know that when that day comes I will stand at the thresh hold with a pair of scissors and cut the binds that weigh me down. I will walk, lightened, into my own and I will be both happy and sad to see my beautiful locks go.
No comments:
Post a Comment