It seems the world is trying very hard to remind me of what I thought I already knew. Everywhere I turn I see a new reminder that body image, self-love and self-worth are the foundation on which our reflections are built. And once that foundation is shaken and cracked, it seems that the woman smiling back at us in the mirror is always a bit…unsure of herself.

My friend Janice posted this photo, which she found on Pinterest, and asked her blog readers a very important question and one that I am going to pose to you:

Which Woman Would You Rather Be?

That was the caption used with the image by the person who pinned it. Which woman would you rather be?

I can tell you which woman I’d rather look like. And I can tell you which woman I feel like. And then I can tell you that it’s all a bunch of bullshit anyway and none of it matters because it’s not about what we see when looking at and judging their bodies. It’s what they see when they look in a mirror. It’s how they feel about themselves. And who you or I would rather be doesn’t mean a damned thing to either one of them.

Maybe that’s the point. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, why are we trying to tell everyone else that what they see is wrong?

My answer? I’d rather be the one who is happy and comfortable in her own skin. I’d rather be the one who loves herself and all that she was, is, and ever will be. I’d rather be the woman who didn’t understand what it is to be eating disordered.

Your turn.

Which woman would you rather be?

A lot of us hide behind our words. It’s easier that way. Usually, anyway.

But then the voices inside our heads that can only be expressed with our fingers on our blogs or in our journals or in our essays remind us that we can’t always keep the secrets at bay.

If we had cancer or leukemia or a physical disability that other people could actually see. . . it might be easier. . . maybe. But instead we have our prescriptions and our therapists and our internal struggles and our own issues with shame because we know there is something. . . different. . .

And sometimes that makes us feel like less than we actually are.

Just a few days ago, Jenny Lawson (everybody’s favorite Bloggess) bravely and beautifully told the world about her struggles with depression and self-harming behavior that she is hoping to get under control before her young daughter is old enough to really see what is going on. Jenny spoke about the cycle of depression and how it affects us and our families and how no one really understands the guilt that comes along with each breath as we realize how much everyone else had to pick up the slack because we were just working on being.

And survival. And pride. For us and those who love us. Jenny talked about those things to.

We listened, empathized, related, and shared. Because that’s what not hiding behind our words can do for those we are connected with. Using our words to open even the tiniest pieces of our souls to the world has power. And with that power comes acceptance and love and understanding and validation. .  and even more pride.

Because we survived.

I wear a silver ribbon because:

• there are things I’m not brave enough to share yet but. . .
• my sister is manic depressive
• I am clinically depressed
• eating disorders never really go away
• happiness comes wrapped in a tiny little capsule
• Obsessive-compulsive scab picking is how I self harm
• when I tell you that there’s no shame in mental illness, I mean it but. . .
• I’m not quite sure that rule applies to me
• and I want it to

Thank you, Jenny. Thank you for using your words to bring us all to a better place that includes support and love and self-acceptance.

Why do you wear a silver ribbon?

***

This post originally appeared on Owning Pink.

lies not in the consistency, but in the

glorious truth that water comes with

a choice.

Blood binds me, ties me to

nothing

and to

everything.

But it binds me, nonetheless.

Blood comes with baggage, with history,

with future, and with family arguments,

most of which are held in my head.

Blood comes with love and with pain and with

laughter

and

tears

and strangers who once were more

until they decided that sometimes

blood just isn’t thick enough.

Blood comes with a heavy responsibility

to remain loyal to what was in order

to maintain appearances because

it’s just easier to lie to ourselves

with strained smiles for our public

and save the bitching for when

the appropriate backs

are turned.

Blood comes with a silence so loud

that we must laugh louder

to drown out the sound of

words left unspoken.

So I choose water when blood remains

the only tie.

Because sometimes, blood just isn’t

thick enough.

***

I originally posted this poem in January of 2010 and came across it in my archives while on the hunt to find words worthy of a repost. Maybe I’ll be funny next week. For now, this is the inside of my head before the Prozac kicks in.

Ever since I can remember, the response to “My birthday is the day after Christmas,” has been one form or another of  “Oh, that really has to suck.” I used to argue the point as a child, especially when I was young enough to still be included on Santa’s list because really, gifts from Santa, every relative in a huge family, and the parents kind of made up for the constantly combined gifts. I got older eventually and Santa Stopped bringing my presents. My refusal to get pregnant without planning the child’s birthday to be as far away from Christmas as possible is probably more telling about what it’s like to have been brought home in a Christmas stocking than anything else.

I’m the oldest of five girls and my sister immediately following me was born on December 23 just a few days before my second birthday. Trust me, I’ve made it perfectly clear to my mother that she should have seriously considered knitting during the month of March instead of working on procreating. Think of the children, lady.

Because we celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve with our extended family on my father’s side, my sister and I would jointly blow out the birthday candles on the shared cake, laughing every year as our names got jumbled because it was more fun that way, after our holiday meal. Our birthday gifts were then handed over as a means to distract us for a few hours. Tradition in our family dictated we open the presents under the tree at midnight, after placing the baby Jesus in nativity scene between Mary and Joseph, to remind us of the true meaning of Christmas. I’ll be honest in telling you that all of this was lost on us as children because the chance to stay up all night and sleep all the next day was something we looked forward to all year just as much as opening our gifts to see what Santa brought us.

Nonetheless, that was how it went, and we eventually got smart enough to start putting the presents in pile for each relative around 11:30 so that the moment my tia had placed the baby Jesus in the  collective rip of wrapping paper signaled the start of the races. We’d stay up for hours playing with our new stuff; sisters and cousins trying to fight the sleep that would eventually see us nodding off into a pile of wrapping paper before we were shuffled off to our make shift beds. Morning always came late on Christmas day with dinner leftovers for breakfast (Mexicans are famous for scrambling anything in eggs and calling it a meal) and adults playing poker while we basked in the New Toy smell of as-of-yet-unbroken toys and games without any missing pieces, at least until my parents herded my sisters and me in the van so we could drive over an hour to my mother’s sister’s home for dinner with her side of the family. By the time we got back to my tia and tio’s house that night, we were tired enough to not be kept awake by the always loud and sometimes louder jokes and resulting laughter while the adults finished their poker game and enough beers to rival the empties found on the floor after a college frat party.

Sometime around noon, our rumbling stomachs would be loud enough to stir us from our beds the next day. Tio would already have been up for hours and something scrambled with eggs would greet us for breakfast. The rest of the adults usually joined us later and dove into a steaming bowl of menudo to cure their hangovers. Sometimes I remembered it was my birthday before the first relative kissed me and wished me a happy day and sometimes I didn’t. Either way it kind of didn’t matter because I’d already opened my birthday gifts after dinner and before midnight on Christmas Eve. At least there was leftover cake.

I’m not telling you this to feel sorry for me, unless you are also a Mappy Birthmas baby, because then you are totally allowed to relate. My birthday is what it is, and even though the date isn’t even singularly spectacular enough to refer to it as anything other than “the day after Christmas,” only three birthdays in my entire memory actually sucked.

The most obvious one is my 30th birthday, which came just about four weeks after my father died unexpectedly. Then there was that Christmas when I was about ten and had begged and begged all year for a ten-speed bike. Points for you if you’ve already figured out why your father proudly putting together your new Birthmas gift in the living room turned out to be the world’s biggest punch line until summer. But perhaps my favorite was the year an aunt took me to see The Nutcracker Ballet and I sat through the entire performance proudly playing my “air flute” on my lap during the appropriate parts. We were there because I had asked her to bring me because I was learning some of the music in concert band. And it sucked because I soon learned that my ticket was my Christmas gift and hers was my birthday gift.

The kicker was that we didn’t even have good seats.

This year I finally realized I’ve hit that time in my life that children won’t understand themselves until they, too, get to where I am. It’s just a day. Another year. I hear most women turning 34 are like that, which makes your birthday and my birthday just about the same.

And for the record? Buttercup was born in June.

Bruja.

It means “witch” in Spanish and was something I grew up hearing constantly as a child. It was a reference to my crazy, kinky curls that my mother insisted on brushing so much they frizzed to a static nightmare before pulling and twisting the whole mess into the world’s tightest pony tail.

I’m sure my aunts and uncles didn’t mean anything by it. They thought it was cute.

I probably laughed it off.

“Look at her hair,” I say to my friend H.C. just a few weeks ago when out and about, “it’s crazy and I love it.”

I’m referring to a little girl, probably five or six years of age, and she’s oblivious to the admiring glances being cast her way by anyone who passes. Her kinky curls are wild and free and defying gravity just because they can. She doesn’t notice the glances because what other people think doesn’t matter to her. I imagine she’s been raised with “you’re beautiful just the way you ares” and “the world would be so boring if we all looked the sames.” It’s the same message I try to convey to Buttercup every chance I get. I don’t want her growing up to think everyone is judging her appearance and that her crazy curls must be manipulated to be something they are not just so she can blend in with everyone else trying not to look like they are trying to blend in, too.

My mother came to visit a few months back and good times were had by all as she spoiled her granddaughter with cuddles and toys and kisses. She spoiled me, too, with little things like mornings to sleep in and the opportunity to go grocery shopping by myself. I didn’t realize until she left that Buttercup hadn’t had one wind blown curl fly across her face during the entire visit. And I certainly wasn’t prepared for temper tantrums and pleas to “pull my hair back, mama!” for the two weeks i “lost all the hair bands in the house.”

But there it was. And here I am.

If I wasn’t a mother of a four-year-old who asks me questions like why I didn’t wish for two babies or if humans will become extinct if the Earth runs out of water, I might continue to pull my ‘fro back into a bun at the nape of my neck because I’m not self-conscious that way. But I am the mother of a fou-year-old who asks me questions like why I didn’t wish for two babies and if humans will become extinct if Earth ever runs out of water. And unless I want her asking me why I encourage her to love and celebrate her curls while I try to hide my own, it’s time to celebrate what I’ve got, too.

For both our sakes.

Today, I went out with The Husband with my mexifro in all its glory. No one pointed. No one laughed. I even got complimented. And after I forgot about being self-conscious, I realized how lovely it felt to just let myself be.