A-musings: Painting my Feathers part deux

So this is a delayed continuation of the rambling post I wrote sometime last month.  It was inspired by the hair cut I got a few nights ago. Random? Maybe.  Silly? Perhaps.  Meaningful? Definitely.  

America's Next Top Model isn't a show I follow regularly, but back in the days when I had cable (and didn't have to run over to Caleb's to watch Biggest Loser and the premier of The Voice - which was wonderful by the way) I used to occasionally take a "personal day" and blow off all of my prior commitments to watch one of the all-day ANTM marathons.   ::Completely random side tangent - "Caleb" spells "cable" if you rearrange the letters.  I think the universe is condoning my mooching::  Anyhow . . . during one of the early seasons, Tyra decided to cut one of the girl's hair into a boyish pixie cut a-la Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby.  Tyra kept saying how the girl had the face to pull off the look.  And she did - cute, angular features, a pointed nose and cheek bones, and a strong, but feminine jaw line.  Post-cut she looked just like a gorgeous, elvin badass.  A girl who I would definitely want to be friends with if I wasn't so intimidated by her cool factor.  From the moment she unveiled her new 'do I wished that I had the kind of face that allowed me to chop all my hair off.   But I was convinced that I didn't.  And maybe I don't.  My cheeks are round (boardering on - okay maybe fully qualifying as - 'plump'), my nose is balled rather than pointed,. and my face as a whole suggests more cherrub than pixie. So that was that.  I was destined to have long hair - at least until the point in time when I was old enough to dye it blue without anyone really caring.

And then last summer came.  I had just graduated from college, had no job prospects (aside from the nannying gig that had supported me for the previous 2 1/2 years), was subletting an itsy-bitsy one bedroom apartment in a questionable neightborhood with no central air during the hottest months of the year, and was in the midst of a roller-coaster relationship that was rapidly becoming derailed.  I needed a change.  Fast.  And while I took steps to attempt to remedy the direct source of many of these problems, change was slow, and partly out of my control.  So I did what many women do in times of loss, angst, or unbearable heat - I chopped off my hair.  But even with this driving urge for drastic change, I was too scared to go full-Farrow.  I opted for more of a 70s grown-out pixie look, that fell at the nape of my neck in the back, and was shorter in the front.  It's taken almost another full year of going gradually shorter (and the inspiration of Emma Watson, Michelle Williams, Mia Wasikowska, and the original Mia) to finally take the plunge and get the cut I've always wanted.  And guess what?  I love it.  I still don't think I necessarily have the face for it (although my lovely stylist said otherwise), and I certainly don't look as edgy and stylish as the aforementioned mega-star hotties, but I feel amazing.   

And this just brings me back to the same point I made in the last post on this subject:  I am slowly but surely creating the life I want and becoming the woman I always dreamt of being.  Certainly one hair cut (no matter how drastic), tattoo, or outfit can't single handedly change your entire life - but for me these little steps have changed the way I view myself.  I'm no longer the girl who's not badass enough to have a tattoo, or who doesn't have the face to rock a pixie cut - because now I'm all tatted up and pixied out. And that gives me courage to take other risks - like starting this blog.   I'm sure there are plenty of people who think my tatts are ugly, my hair is unflattering, and that this blog is stupid - and to them I shurg my shoulders and say "eh".  Because they could be right.  But I've gotten way more compliments on all of these endeavors than I have criticisms (so either I rock, or the naysayers out there are just introverted quiet types - either way, my ego appreciates it).  Besides, no matter what anyone says or thinks, I'm still doing all of these things that I always thought I couldn't - maybe I'm making myself sound stupid, or look unattractive in the process (it certainly doesn't feel that way so that thought doesn't really bother me), but I'm doing them - can't is out of the equation.

So today I signed up for a month of hot yoga classes, because the girl I am becoming apparently does yoga in a 120 degree room, plus I got the membership half price (and I have always been the kind of girl who loved a deal).