On Appearance

I still feel like I'm not getting the words out right. I want to be careful about what I say and how I say it.

I guess for the longest time I've felt that women (and men, but mostly women) would do better to direct the energy they spend worrying about their appearance elsewhere. Imagine, if instead of drying my hair, doing my make up, waxing my legs etc I devoted those hours to volunteer work for example (heck devoting it to my kids would be a start). For the most part I've spent very little time on those things. As a rule I don't wear make up (have been a bit more recently, more on that later), very rarely blow dried my hair, and certainly forget to go to the hairdressers (I probably manage an annual visit if that). A friend of mine at highschool would routinely spend an hour or two to get ready to go anywhere. She had a sister 11 months younger than her who was similar, and quite frankly it was ridiculous. My friend was (and is) consistenly late to anywhere, and back then, hours late. I still shake my head. She was a very beautiful girl who could never let the world see her without her face. I've known several people like this in my life.

When I talk about things I can't 'unknow', this relates to one of them. I will never believe that prepping and preening on a regular basis is adequate use of my time. So despite wishing at times I looked better than I do, I can't justify the effort required to get there. I know people say 'it's for me, no-one else', and I get that a little bit. Because of course, when you step out feeling you look wonderful, well you do indeed generally feel pretty good too...but where does that feel good come from? Isn't a bit of it at least the hoping/knowing that others think you look good too? And what of it? How does that give me value? If I looked like a sack of crap would I be worth less?

Of course there's no escaping that for the sighted, we make our first judgements, usually (and I say usually because we do meet so many people on the internet sight unseen these days), based on appearance. It may not be so much about whether someone is attractive or not to us, but moreso are they hygenic (clean clothes?), do they have money or not (labels? value of their clothing?), are they 'hip' and so on and so on.

Because I've recently moved, I've found it more important to present myself a certain way in my new environment. I want to be accepted by the other mums at kinder for example, and short of speaking to them, part of it is fitting in - trying to first figure out how to look the part, and then to ensure that I do. Perhaps I am being ridiculous and revealing how superficial I am by admitting this. I don't remember being this obsessed in my younger days...(the grunge period actually suited me just fine as I was too poor to own much more than jeans, flannies and blunnies, and besides that's what I liked to wear.)

I think at least a part too of this new obsession on looking a certain way is getting older. I can't hold onto my youth via a bare face and ponytail. All the women I can think of my age and older really take care of how they look.

But it still all really shits me. I just don't want to care! Because it's all so shallow, so pointless really when compared to real life!

Has any of that made sense?