i've come upon it inadvertently, brushed up against raw and i didn't expect to be so raw. it all started when i went to get a haircut and left with it a good dozen inches shorter than i wanted. former waist-length hair now bounces with sporty flourish on top of my head. here's the thing. you couldn't pay anyone i know to describe me as sporty ~ and now i can't even braid what's left (this coming from one who has 'dreadlocks' on her dream list).
blurting
my friend teresa says blurting reveals your deepest truths. blurt means to divulge impulsively. here's my blurt: i hate my hair. and i hate it because it forces me to look at the physical ways things are changing, shifting, mostly through choices (and / or hesitations and second-guessings? which is the same thing as not trusting myself) and it makes me face it every day in the mirror instead of blissfully burying my face in quantum physics or spirituality or anything else that fascinates me. dissecting these hopeful locks opened the floodgates and now i don't recognize myself and i am brought right back down beside myself and i don't feel very warrioressy these days.
If you ask me what I came into this life to do,
I will tell you:
I came to live out loud.
Emile Zola
I will tell you:
I came to live out loud.
Emile Zola
______
you soul-prompt for the week:
if you could blurt anything in this moment, what would it be?
please feel free to blurt in the comments.
this is a safe space.
xo.
I like blurtations. This is raw, real, vulnerable and I was deeply spoken to. In fact I would say you had a warrioress moment because you bravely faced your true emotion and it wasn't all sunny but it was true. True is pure. And you held out your trembling hand for me to take and say I know exactly how you feel. For me instead of hair it's another size and I do not recognize the girl in the camera or pants. It's tough. This assessment brings a sense of wariness. We all have to face it in one way or another... The changes life brings and I thank you for blurting courageously. It brought with it clarity and dignity. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI feel for you tho and I tear up at your pain and wishing. I had a hair colour go awry and it was aweful. Now I love it because I got it fixed but may I suggest the fake dreadlock extensions if it bothers you a lot? It's worth the money. I bought extensions when I chopped my hair off years ago and they were worth the money... I know what hair can do even if it lOoks good . You still are gorgeous. I know it . But it's ok to play and figure out other outcomes if your heart isn't into the mirror image;) just do what you need to. Until then know you ate the warrioress of the best kind... A human one with real emotions, flaws and sweet expressions rolled into a paradox of confusion and grace.
Love
thank you darlin. i know you like these less-poetic posts and i love that you are here with your arms opened wide when i just let it all hang out ungracefully. thanks for understanding, too. my ego says 'it's just hair and some people don't even have both their legs'...and so i fight that a little bit, too. thank you for tearing up with me. <3 always.
Deleteit's a fascinating time when our shadows actually stare us in the face, literally. like, were we ignoring them that much? or perhaps it's their innate perversity.
ReplyDeletei feel naked with short hair. i don't choose it, but, have earned interesting things living that vulnerability.
Saving this post to read again when I get home ... but I just wanted to say that dreadlocks are not out of the question. In fact, this may be the perfect time to prepare. I am on my second set of dreadlocks. The first started when my hair was longer and they never really settled into themselves. The second now started after my cut all my dreadlocks off last summer and my hair was short and when it got long enough, I just started backcombing sections and already this set is settling in much nicer. By the time it grows longer, I believe they will be almost locked.
DeleteBe back later to read, settle into your words and share more.
cynthia, thanks for your encouragement. i was worried about shorter dreads...have you documented your journey at all? maybe this will make me take the plunge.
Deletemonica, yes...that nakedness and vulnerability... i don't know why that is for me, but i'm determined to learn through it. and your comment about their innate perversity...fascinating.
DeleteI blurt a lot... and hair is the biggest thing with me. I am very impulsive with hair. When my hair is long long long, I feel powerful, strong.. and then something in me says, " cut it" and I do.. and then I regret it, deeply and I am forced to look inside for the strength my hair gave me but as it grows, it's a process, I grow along with it. Me too, I was going dread my hair again..and then the commitment scared me, I painstakingly removed the ones I had in last year and then I cut it all off. short. really short. Now I'm going to get dread extensions at some point. For me, it all comes down to how does this make me feel? You would think after all these years, I would know that I am not myself, not in my own skin comfortably with short hair. Hopefully, I've learned the lesson.
ReplyDeletei'm glad you can relate... :-/ do you have a good source for dread extensions?
Delete**hugs**.. well, I'm still looking. A friend of my daughter's does them and she does them for herself and they look gorgeous and real although she uses synthetic vs. human hair.. so, I'm thinking I'll go that route.
DeleteHair is powerful. For me cutting off my hair was a powerful moment, because I was laughing in the face of everything I had been told about how short hair would make me look fatter and was a sign of a lonely angry woman. I feel like I often hid behind my long hair, and having it short makes me hold up my head a little higher.
ReplyDeleteAnd blurting? *Sigh* Before coming out to family, I was feeling more open and carefree than ever before in my life. Since coming out to family, it has been hard to hang on to that. I don't know when I have ever been hated this much, and when almost everyone who has "known" you the longest hates you the most, it is hard not to question if it really is you with the problem. Whenever I am able to put their anger and pain aside, I am happy and relaxed, but every time I take it up and try to reason with them, speak with them, show them that I am the same person I have always been, and yet a better person... I feel overwhelmed with doubt and sadness. And it's not like they were even there for me that much, but it still hurts to lose relationships because of who you are. Or at least to not know what will happen to those relationships and being powerless to change anything about it.
((melissa)) you are one of the BRAVEST women i know. i often think about you when faced with my less-significant but in some ways similar woes. thank you for being so authentic. <3
DeleteThere is something about hair, I don't know what it is, but it is deep, probably primal. I began a journey a couple of years ago to become a hairstylist, I thought it would be fun and creative. When I became immersed in it, I saw the power hair had and being the hypersensitive girl that I am, I could not handle it. The disappointment and comfortableness that accompanies transformation was too much for me. It ate at me and I carried it with me long after the clients were gone.
DeleteSo I feel for you, and its so ok to hate your hair, sit with those feelings. Trust the chain of events and let the story of Rain continue to unfold <3
thank you dear you. <3 i can imagine that being a hairstylist really is challenging for hsp folks. good for you for following what is best for you....
DeleteWhen will I stop comparing my journey to others, I know spirtitually, and when I am in my higher self that we our of course on different paths with different lessons, but an emotional child side of me sometimes envies the climes reached by some in what seems like a short time, and others I question how it is that they have not seemingly moved at all. So wrong of me, and something I am working on, living in my own moment, with my own lessons, and knowing that for me they are gratifying and monumental, I want to linger a little longer in that state of grace, and not compare...just be..
ReplyDeletejust be...sometimes the simplest and yet most challenging thing. rest here, friend. we can all 'be' together.
DeleteI know just about nothing about dreads since they have never been an interest in mine but I did meet a guy years ago in LA (who came trick or treating for charity on Halloween) who had the most beautiful felted-looking hair. He said that he'd started it when it was VERY SHORT, like a 1/4inch long or something, just barely long enough to twist together (or however he got it to stick to itself).
ReplyDeleteAnd blurts are good because they tell you what you have really been thinking/believing but not allowing yourself to acknowledge. Wish I'd blurt out something! I've been really depressed this week--after months of feeling almost normal--and simmering with rage but don't know what it is. It is hard to keep it from splattering all over my family since I don't know where it really belongs, and I end up hating myself instead.
yes! maybe start blabbering and see what comes out ;-) i'm sorry you're going through a darker time right now. i hope it ends soon for you. <3
DeleteI can so relate to the hair dilemma...cut all my long hair off a few years ago...my long down my back naturally curly hair....during a particularly emotionally time in my life..one might call it crisis. Anyways I am happy to see it coming back, but it still gives me twingey moments of pain at times...and I have to ask myself"what were you thinking???" lol
ReplyDeletewhat do I want to blurt today
I am feeling heavy today...like tummy heavy, I don't like that..but it is brought on by my own choices
I have been indulging and I can feel it, so I am now back on track, but feeling a little resentful about the whole thing!
muh
anyways thats life...and it is a good one : )
love and light
mmmm so glad you can relate to the hair....although i have some exciting things planned for it. :)
Deletei hope you find the path to feeling lighter soon. <3
I've been battling hormones and just plain tiredness the last week and a half. When I come into these phases I notice the dark places and how easy it is to just fall into them. So, I'd blurt out how sometimes I just want to go to the dark place and be done with it, and work my way through until the hormones calm down.
ReplyDeleteDark places being bouts of depression.
thinking of you, sweet one. thank you for your brave blurting here. <3<3<3 sending a little sunshine to you today.
DeleteBlurt #1: I love people!
ReplyDeleteBlurt #2: I get really tired of people!
Blurt #3: I can't live without them, so I keep trying, knowing it's going to get pretty rough sooner or later.
Blurt #4: That's life - people, some scary, some lovely, all confusing to some degree or another. The most interesting part of life.
Miriam
wow i can really relate to this! thank you for your comment.
DeleteI love love love this prompt, how refreshing AND empowering.
ReplyDeleteI had something on the tip of my whole body that I need to blurt: I DON'T CARE! {I wrote a bit more about it on my blog, because it felt so good to put this outside of me}.
...
I love this "brushed up against raw and i didn't expect to be so raw" - so honest and I read the *surprise* in it, as if you are again taken back as you write the words.
...
Thanks Rain, xo
thank you. :D as always.
Deletexo.
my blurt : I do not feel I am worthy to be a mother.lots of reasons right now.
ReplyDeletemy hair : I keep thinking I will grow it and somehow magically be a little bit pretty.But the truth is, every time I see it getting longer the mirror reflects cooneyites back to me.And so I cut of my past and all again.Then I am angry because they still possess my fear.
helpful and interesting : truth sharing.Painting all your shades bravely on your canvas.Love the raw and messy edges.See the places they connect with our raw and messy edges.Love you <3
mmmm this is so deep, my friend. i love the meeting place of raw and messy edges because that is where slivers of light spill through the fraying tatters of ourselves.
Delete((hugs)) i'm sorry for the feelings of unworthiness. :(
Whether quantum spirituality is probabilistic or deterministic?
ReplyDeletei never blurt. well, almost never. can't think of the last time i did. i'm known for being one of those people who pauses before speaking, to make sure things come out in a non deprecating way. i'm not rash, i'm not impulsive. at least, that's how i'm "supposed" to be. but sometimes i get tired of that, you know? why can't i speak what i'm feeling, exactly when i'm feeling it? i've grown up with the impression that no one wants that. ever. but...here, here i'll blurt for you.
ReplyDeletei'm angry today. people are such fucking IDIOTS sometimes, and i want to scream and wring necks at the same time. they judge, assume they're right, and don't seem to CARE about the lives and PEOPLE involved. the HEARTS that they're crushing. (this is regarding family, church people, sexuality, etc)
there are other things and situations that i could blurt about...frustrations, things that hurt, things i'm excited about... there's always a lot there, but i'll leave it at that for now. thanks for this post. <3 i'm sorry you're dissatisfied with your hair. :( i can't fathom that you look any less divine and beautiful, but i know it can be frustrating to deal with things like that! i love you so much, dearest.
yay for your blurting!! i think it's good for the soul sometimes, a new kind of confession maybe? haha.
Deleteand THANK you for your oh so sweet words. xo.
I blogged some very random blurts.
ReplyDeleteand I totally get the hair, but i love that you're using it to grow yourself.
<3
amazing! i'm so glad you blogged. and thanks for being so understanding about my hair. i know it's kinda silly, but still. definitely using this.
Delete1) no one really likes it when I blurt...it all comes out in a blunt mess that no one wants to see through.
ReplyDelete2) I hate it when people put "christian" in front of their occupation, especially if they're trying to be artists or healers. I feel like when your craft becomes an extension of or platform for your religion (with no room for humanity, or appreciating things as they are, because it's not straight out of the bible, or done by someone with an overtly christian agenda) that you've lost something important and cut yourself off from a lot...
i can relate to this so much. <3
Deletethank you for blurting here. it's a safe space. {{<3}}
I'm tired. I'm scared. I need guidance.
ReplyDeleteI am the owner of my own brick and mortar business and I do not have a direct peer I can go to, who is in it as much as I am. I wish I did. I wish I knew how to succeed without a multitude of failures to learn from. It is tiring, but necessary, to learn from failure, from disappointment. But, today, I am tired, and I don't want to to fail on this day. I just don't.
I hear you. I started a business last year and it almost killed me. Killed my spirit and my body...I am SO sorry you don't have a peer to consult. My new friend was the one who advised and guided ME this past year and I wouldn't have made it without her.
DeleteYou're SO right. It IS tiring but necessary to learn from failure and disappointment. You are on the right track...keep walking forward...
((hugs anonymous)) wow... i've dabbled in small business ownership enough to know just how exhaustive and frightening (and exhilarating...but still) it can be. sending extra love to you today. i hope everything smooths itself out and that you start reaping bountiful rewards. please carve out time for yourself to rest and be nourished. you may not always have your store but as long as you're alive you need your health and sanity and sometimes you need to take your own 'mental health day' and play. please do?
Deletexoxo
Sigh...Rain, I am FINALLY getting to read this and it was at JUST the right time. SO odd because I had the page open a few times this week and got diverted. Thank you for "blurting". This has helped me tremendously. I have been blurting for almost two weeks now and have also referred to it as purging at times. I DO feel guiltily glad for it all...I feel like I've had some real honest ugliness exposed and identified...it's only increased my strength. It HAS been a strange journey though.
ReplyDeleteThe HAIR. I was SO close two times to chopping off my long auburn locks and going all Zen, grey haired gal with the flowing garments! LOL! I feel as if I am BOTH of these women. I find power and strength in both of these identities no matter how opposite they ARE. It was SO strange...I continued to resist those urges and everything came clear a few days ago. I'm SO glad I didn't chop them off completely. I DO need a dye job and a trim badly now though...I do my own hair...scared to death to entrust it to anyone else anymore (and TOO cheap).
I have been doing so much blurting...I long for quiet and stillness again...thank you for sharing this, it sounds like many of us needed to hear it and be comforted.
thanks, lovie. for the record, if you ever do decide to chop your locks and go all zen, send us your hair so we can use it! and you would make a radiant zen goddess.
DeleteI use to be very impulsive with my hair, dying it from sunny blonde to black to red on a whim and chopping it off in pixie styles every so often. Even when my hair experiments went bad it never really bugged me. I figured it was just hair and it would grow out or I'd redye it or something. I never felt I was that emotionally attached to my hair. THEN I GOT PREGNANT. Out of the blue my silky straight hair went frizzy and wild and felt horrible to touch and I HATED IT with every fiber if my being. So I chopped it off thinking that it would grow out and be back to it's normal soft texture. That was two years ago and it's grown only a few inches & still hasn't completely regained it's former texture. I realized how attached I'd been to the FEEL of my hair and I realized how much I deeply resent change that I couldn't direct or control. I'm still working on getting over that resentment and learning to let go and accept things I can't change or control.
ReplyDeleteMy blurt: I really really wish I could curl up alone in bed with a fluffy comforter & some good books and spend this rainy dayy snuggled up enjoying peace and quiet and a bit of alone ME time the way I use to before marriage & babies. And I feel guilty for being selfish and wishing for alone time. So instead we are all going to an amusement park :(. I'd rather be in bed. With a book. Blissfully Alone.
i completely understand! i hope it works out for you to have your bliss day soon. :D i don't think it's selfish; think of it as preventative maintenance. :D for the record, that's my kind of divine day too.
DeleteHug to you, my friend. I understand this quiet, this sense of loss. I'm in a similar place, feeling a need to withdraw awhile, be quiet and safe with those who love me. Figure out how to deal with the unfixable situations that are bringing me pain and grief.
ReplyDeletelistening: cd from the classical concert I went to this weekend
thinking: of what to do with unkind people
seeing: two dogs sleeping on the floor
smelling: fresh bread, the hint of a storm brewing
reading: Rules of Civility
thanks, darlin.
Delete(unkind people? :'(.....so sorry, dear.)
Doing much better now. :-) Have a lovely Body Talk Therapist who is helping me, and I feel much more peaceful. xo
Deletehttp://dramaticelegance.blogspot.com/2012/04/daughter-rising.html
ReplyDeleteloved one, this is my blurt. too long in coming, but i freed it finally. for my girl-child, and for me.
blessing you with breathed prayers this evening.
mmmmmm.
DeleteMy blurt: I feel guilty every time I sit down to my computer, so I do what writing needs to be done and leave my dear friends' words unread... and the numbers in my reader and my inbox pile up, and I feel faithless, disconnected, guilty for not having time for this community, confused by guilt on all sides really, and life spins dizzy out of my hands, and I miss you. I don't know what deep truths this is revealing, but it feels good to say. Much love to you, precious one.
ReplyDeletei miss you too, darlin, so much. please don't feel guilty on my account though, ever! thank you for blurting. xoxoxo.
DeleteI blurted to my husband last night before we fell asleep. I wanted to talk serious, inspiring, and he was in a happy, joking mood. I wanted to know his mind and felt like he did not let me in. I talked about how we don't know the ones we love.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe I behaved like that, drama-queen style. So not me.
I can feel the tension this morning, but I don't know what to say. I want to know him.
I hated falling asleep with a cold, wrecked heart. It took me so long to find sleep.
And I hate the distance this morning. I hate feeling guilty for my behavior, when he probably feels like I acted like a crazy person. I wonder if he'll bring it up.
{{<3<3<3}}
Deletesending prayers of love and peace.
i love this piece... right now I need to blurt out to anyone who would listen in this safe space (which my blog unfortunately isn't) that i feel a little slighted; i feel a little unpretty and ungraceful... i just am who i am and i can't be anything else without becoming an actress; i am dreadfully plain and i prefer excessive comfort to the current fad of dressing up that is so prevalent in the world. mostly i am just comfortably in my own skin, but there are those that always open you up and have nothing less than judgement for you in there space. and for some reason, the me that is always so comfortable and assured, suddenly feels 16 years old and clumsy; this me also takes a lot of things to personally whilst at the same time knowing fully and well, that it wasn't meant to be; this me also just posted a piece on being yourself just to find herself struggling with this...
ReplyDeleteand i wish i could have my sister back, but there's this wall you see; a wall formed by being cut away... when you cut off your arm, it may or may not be stitched back on, but you will always see the scar and the movement will never be the same...
{{{hugs dear you}}}
Deletehearing you, sweet nadya...
those feelings are so debilitating sometimes, aren't they? vulnerability and feelings of inadequacy are a crippling cocktail because it feels there is nowhere to hide or no way to make them stop. i commend you for feeling through the feelings, because that's the only way they will lose their power.
((but can i tell you that i've seen your profile picture and you are anything but plain or unpretty? actually you are adorable.))
My blurt would be...." I can't stand cleaning, cooking, cleaning & then cleaning some more" I think that cleaning is necessary but also the BIGGEST WASTE of life that I can think of. I am so incredible tired of spending my days cleaning up the same S&%$ over and over again.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I said it and hopefully no one will hate me for it, I just feel like I could do so much more with my life if I didn't have so much stuff to clean and organize. I am serious when I say " I am going to keep getting rid of things until I don't have to spend my entire day cleaning" That is my plan...good or bad at least it's a plan. ~ Brooke
here is my blurty blurt:
ReplyDeletei am sitting here in my sun room. laptop open (not usual these days). all the doors and windows open to our home. sun lightly tapping me on the shoulder. wind flowing through. i can hear the laughter and stories my boys are telling one another outside. and i rest my chin on my palm and gaze outside...feeling you deeply in this moment. feeling you here, somehow. listening to the music on your homepage and breathing what it all means to me in. i am shedding stuff. i am coming into who i am. come of it is circled back to home and comfort and some of it new and painful but beautiful. relationships shifting. my heart guarding and yet opening. this is what i want to say. and i also want to say that Jesus is a part of all of this. and it feels like coming home. love you, denise