TheBanyanTree: Self Absorbed

[Maria Gibson]

It's embarrassing to me that I am writing once again in regards to my
appearance.  It seems that I cannot run and definitely cannot hide from
what I look like and the fact that it is a lot different than how I used
to look.  I can't pass a mirror without looking to see if I look the
same as I did a little while ago.  I sometimes go into the bathroom for
the sole sake of looking to see if my makeup still looks all right, did
I indeed chose ok when I dressed in the morning, do I still look
slimmer.  The very odd part, the thing that I find hard to explain to
Randy or Barbara is that while I am aware of this, I am very nervous
about showing myself ('swanned' as Randy says) to others.  I do not want
to hide myself but I don't really want to be noticed, or I guess
noticing is ok but more than a word or two makes me cringe.  I won't go
around covered up but don't want attention called to the
transformation.  I have some real issues at hand and am being what I
hope is frank, candid and stark in my explanations.

I'm not sure what to do with myself.  My eyes are wide shut about how to
proceed and remain a person I can be proud to be.   I've always admired
people who were obviously attractive but didn't seem to know/care about
their physical beauty as defined by our society.  Now I see myself as
one who has physical attractiveness, recently acquired, and I want to be
someone who ignores it or just quietly accepts it or does whatever those
who have always had it...do.  But I don't know how to do it.  And I'm
embarrassed to actually be thinking I'm physically attractive.  This is
not a stellar moment, it is in fact a time of tumult.  I feel
inconsequential and stingy.

Perhaps part of my discomfort lies in the fact that I've sort of given
in to some...overhauling, as it were, and have adopted some morning
rituals I previously left to a different kind of woman (am I her now and
is that ok?).  I wear makeup every day, even lipstick....I always wanted
to be a lipstick kind of girl.  I got my nails done again, I keep my
hair trimmed and styled.  I wear only well fitting clothes and will
change after dressing if it doesn't make the grade.  I know I carry
myself differently and I wrestle with myself as to why.  Well, like it
or not, the why must come down to all of the aforementioned which was
precipitated by becoming smaller which is now defined (who is doing the
defining?) in a whole package of physical appearance.  I feel ashamed to
be vain but am unsure of how to stop it.  Not the care of myself, not
the best presentation possible, but the caring of the best
presentation.  I'm sure I'm not making any sense because I can barely
comprehend myself.

I don't want to hide this from my little place of comfort, here in the
Tree, this burdensome part of my growth, this very human and ugly part
of what is happening to me.  This is not a nice thing I share about
myself but it is very real and is my attempt to remain very truthful
with all of you but more so with myself.  I believe that those who know
me will know that this is an attempt to bare soul to you but also,
again, to me.  I am struggling every day to come to grips and make
amends with Maria for looking different and caring that she looks
different.  There was a television program that Randy and I watched
years ago called Deep Space Nine.  In this program was a character named
Dax (sp) who was the same person for eons but only because he (and the
essence of who he is) was a creature that had to be put into different
bodies as those bodies aged or died or were otherwise no longer viable
for him.  So he was essentially the same person inside, albeit with some
new traits and habits of the host, but he was always Dax even if his
appearance became totally different.  I completely identify with that
character now.  I am essentially the same person on the inside but with
some new traits and habits of this 'host.'  I'm not sure I like us.

I think part of my discomfort (as it just this second occurs to me) is
that I am not so much nervous about others noticing that I am attractive
but that they will notice that *I* think I'm attractive.  Perhaps I am
afraid of being 'caught' red-handed in what is a very hard thing to
admit.  Here is where I end because I think this is the thought that is
probably at the core of my discomfiture.  Tie this thought from my first
word to the last and wrap it all in a big box with pretty paper and a
big fancy bow.  But when you unwrap it, do so with the utmost care.

What's inside isn't a gift nor is it what any of us wanted.

Maria