You're in love, think it's the real deal, goes a bit wrong, you convince yourself there's more fish in the sea... You then go one of two ways- 1. Throw yourself under anything with a pulse in a frantic bid for anything that makes you feel less like an alien, or 2. Do something drastic like leave the country, shave your head, become a Monk... Then cycle repeat.
But what if you find yourself at an impasse and go neither way? What happens then? Well, dear Reader. This is where you find yourself in the jarring Upside Down of what-the-fuck-ery so you do now?
Picture this:
You respect your body and your twat a lot more than you did in your twenties, having abstained from the things that nearly destroyed you despite them being 'easy fixes'- the behaviours playing to an anthem of an initially steady (but rapidly gaining) momentum decline that would be enough to give Newton a rod on.
However, convincing yourself that you've 'achieved' somewhat for pairing the orphaned socks together in a frenzied blur of internal monologue, where that Kondo lass would be smiling down at you from her perfectly Feng Shui-ed compartments for life- "well done Jemma, first prize for being a shit show, but at least your toes will be warm until you're dead".
I nearly did shave my head on Thursday evening. Convinced myself that it would be 'empowering', something that isn't just for broken hearted gals with a birth year starting with a 20. Sure I can pull that shit off? How to rid myself of all this bad karma, bad juju, dropping the 'weight'.... Maybe self discovery? Become everything that the ex-mother in law was terrified her own daughter would do, because it's a 'rite of coming out' passage?
I had those fuckers, in my hand, ready to go.
Hands trembling, eyes leaking, a Pinterest save board hyperfocus overflowing with fat birds all looking Free with likely cold ears. The trimmers were turned on, I'm sat on the floor frozen in a follicular fight or flight, buzzers chopping nil other than the shadows of the person I'd become, when I just slumped, hands in my lap still clenched around the trimmers. A nice chunk out of the bush (at least the Girls were unscathed).
I realise I've not paid much attention to that particular part of my body until I'm sat looking at the orphaned tumbleweed hurtling away from it's motherland like a weird 'This Is What Colour Your Eyebrows Should Be' banner whisking across the screen of a shit B film copied from the market VHS stall before the piracy advert fully starts. Not even the moment that I realise that I can actually see the fucker it came from... I had entirely disembodied myself from my pelvic area in anything other than the sense a Karen (housing committee board) would angrily spit unfounded venom at that one neighbour that didn't hoover their wheelie bin. Easily now, in the seemingly relentless uterine war waged for the last 6 months- reserving no more than 20 days off in the last 180. My haemoglobin had plummeted, self love dead, so why not grow a 70s bush? My own feminine version of the handlebar Tash.
Still, in that moment, faced with realisation that a large proportion of my own self protection 'barrier' was now missing, I found a Tiny Teensy Moment to acknowledge that whilst the breakup diet had completely bypassed the chins, they'd been rerouted to the cake shelf, every cloud.
It was in that moment, somewhere between the internal battle of which way to direct my trembling sweaty hands with the trimmers buzzing away, strangled badly plucked chicken, or a thumb... That I realised that neither of these were self-empowerment, they were a form of self harm. Because had they been a true honest part of me before, they'd be like that already right? Because I know myself, right?
Like fuck I do. It was in those wee hours that followed that I remembered that I'd made my friend promise to never let me revisit my Thumb haircut (Covid life), in the same way that I'd promised to sweep the Bestie's bedroom for 'personal effects' if she snuffs it before the GP makes his final home visit to certify there's no pulse. We make those promises, did I subconsciously think this wasn't one of those situations, did it call to initiate Operation Wingbitch? I doubt it. So I sighed into yet another dodged bullet of life choices that I'd have previously made much more impulsively, with greater fallout, bigger consequences. I sat looking at my battered bald chicken, and for the first time in 48 hours, didn't want to be swallowed into the ground.
But alas, these moments pass quickly Dear Reader. As I sit scooping chicken selects into my sad face because I've less chance of these resurfacing uninvited than anything that has nutrients, I reflect. For, despite that brief 20 minute interlude, it's been a smorgasbord or shite before, immediately after and ever since.
The supposedly empowering Re-Thumbing moment, a kind of unease that is only superseded by a danger fart on the way to your first ever professional job interview (I lost, but still miraculously got the job even if I did have to wash my arse in McDonald's, do the interview commando and had to drive there like my coccyx would explode if it touched the drivers seat). My freeing bald fat girl board saves accidentally pinged into the wedding planning inspo Pinterest.... And I feel my breath catch, my earth plummet all over again as I'm met with a sea of woodland-themed and sunflower-drenched saves, moody and whistful snapshots of a happy ever after that was shot from my life at point blank range, punctuated with accents of the beautiful outfits I never had the chance to try and find Temu copies of... Gut punch.
Fuck that....
Let's look at angry lesbian breakup tiktoks, that's surely going to help, right? It worked for a while, then I saw how much fanny was flinging itself at Lesbian Nan, everyone has someone out there, the ragey posts, the 'oh, she's not worth it' first #wlwfirstbreakup hashtags. It made me feel even more sick.
How do I even find a bastard hashtag for this crock of shite?
So, for now
...
I'll just sob into my chicken selects.
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