No more hair brushes!

I detangled my hair with grim determination. “I will win this battle today even if I go bald in the process.” I thought, gnashing my teeth. Once the tangles were mindfully untangled, I looked up in the mirror. There was a halo of frizz around my head. I had read a meme somewhere which said something to the effect of those who have naturally curly or wavy hair, they are not doing well in this heat. They look like alpacas. That was me in front of the mirror, after 15 minutes of determined detangling. I was an alpaca. I sighed as I rubbed some argan oil to calm the frizz down.

I have written a lot about my hair and my love/hate relationship with it. I have worn it long for most of my life and also worn it very short for about 10 years. Since childhood I grew up not loving my hair. The standard set for little girls was ‘reshmi zulfein’ (silky straight hair) by media, shampoo companies, hair oil companies. My hair was the opposite. Thick, unruly (read wavy), frizzy. I tried hard to tame it. For years, I diligently straightened it to get the silky, straight sheen till I didn’t. One day, I was late for work. I washed my hair but didn’t have the time to dry it or straighten it. People at work stopped me to ask what I had done, it looked so lovely. It had naturally curled itself. That was the day I felt liberated. No more drying, no more straightening. I was going natural.

I still put a comb through my hair though. Lately, we are experiencing intense humidity in our area. And the frizz has been out of control, to say the least. One day, I did not comb my hair after washing it. I put some leave in conditioner, some argan oil and put my fingers through my hair. And I got compliments. “Your hair looks lovely.” What?? The more I let go, the better I look? 🙂

I write all of the above in jest, of course. I do take care of it, brush it before bed time. The point I am trying to make is, at the end of the day, I have reached a place where I feel comfortable with who I am.

My little cousin sent me a poem recently that truly resonated with me.

Blooming Bare

And after the tears had dried,

my vision and voice became clear.

From my darkest shadow pierced the purest light.

I found myself:

Bruised, beautiful, and bare

Stripped of every comfort

but clothed in truth.

Blooming where I was once broken.

– Morgan Richard Olivier

It is age? Is it grief? Is it a combination of both? But I feel myself evolve from my earlier insecure, self doubting self. I look at myself in the mirror these days and look beautiful in my own eyes. I don’t care about how others see me. When I apply kajol to my eyes, or put on lipstick, I do them for myself. I have learned the art of saying a polite but assertive ‘no’ to things I don’t wish to do. I don’t conjure up excuses any more. I simply say I don’t want to do that and hence, no, I will not. I have become politely assertive. My feelings are not hurt as easily. I have lowered my expectations from others, including my family. I mindfully practice kindness to others and myself. I practice empathy. Everyone is fighting their own battles, I try to remember that. If I like something I always comment on it. Life is short and people will remember how you made them feel. I try to understand the changing world around me by reading books. Books help me take a closer look at my implicit biases and act on them. They have been my best friends throughout this journey. They have taught me, entertained me, made me cry and laugh out loud. They have given me words that I needed to hear and find solace in the thought that I was not alone as I lived through dark times.

I was not just broken but shattered just 2 years ago. I don’t know if I am blooming but I am putting pieces of me together. Not brushing my hair may seem like letting myself go but it is quite the opposite really. In my case, it is coming together. It is realizing my worth which is not dependent on the norms set by society. It is the knowledge that I like the person I have become, wet, uncombed hair and all. 🙂

Looking back

I promise this post is not sad. It is more wistful and perhaps a didactic one. Continue reading though, I will try not to sound preachy, I will preach/teach only to myself.

Let me say one thing right at the beginning that I do not consider myself overweight…..yet. My BMI, if you believe the chart, is still within normal range. Let’s ignore the fact that it is creeping towards the higher end of normal but those are nitty gritties. This blog is about how I have perceived myself over the years as I was living in that moment, and how I see my photos of past years, now.

I weighed 112 pounds, 50 kgs when I came to this country in my mid twenties. I ate whatever I wanted, ice-cream and desserts for dinner, drank copious amount of soda and did not gain any weight. I did end up with 2 cavities in my teeth within 7 months of being here though. At age 29, I had my first child and put on some weight because I continued to eat indiscriminately. Then I saw my photos at Sahana’s rice eating ceremony. I gasped. After getting over the shock at the fact that I, in fact, can gain weight, I started being mindful of the quantity of food I ate, started walking and lost the extra pounds. I think I was satisfied with how I looked but I am not sure. Looking back, I can never remember a time when I was comfortable with how I looked. That is a terrible way to live. Anyway, I had Ryan at 34. Losing the weight after him was not too much of a struggle because running after young children took care of the extra calories I consumed . Also, I hardly had time to eat. With each decade, however, I packed on some extra weight which I was unable to lose till that became my new normal. I turned 50 a couple of years ago and I have a new bar again. I have never been this heavy in my life. My mid section and face are carrying all the extra weight. I have been asked twice this year if I was pregnant. On top of it all, I simply love food. I try not to indulge too much, I try to stay active, I try to incorporate fruits and veggies in my diet but clothes still feel tight. Errr…I sometimes cheat though. I sneak in a brownie at work or two despite my good intentions of staying away from added sugar. Oh well!

What is interesting, however, is when I look back and see some of my photos in my twenties, thirties, forties or even a couple of years ago, I think to myself, “Oh, I looked mighty fine at that age.” I am quite sure though that I did not think I looked mighty fine when I was at that age. I am positive I had misgivings about my body shape, my skin, my hair. I think I will look back on this age in 10 years (if I am alive) and think “Hmm, I looked quite good.”

Here comes the preachy part – to myself! I wouldn’t preach to you, I wouldn’t dare. Appreciate myself today, not ten years later while looking back. In this journey of my life when I feel I am learning new things constantly, this new lesson just got added to the curriculum.

Reemergence

This fight against Covid was closest I have come to being in a war. There were no loud guns or tanks around me. There were, however, death, mayhem, suffering, desperation, helplessness. My entire being was engaged in figuring out how to avert crisis, how to procure help in a war like situation in Kolkata, how to communicate, how to arrange, how to keep my ma and baba breathing. I stopped eating and sleeping for many days. I was functioning and sharp when it came to making decisions about their health care but everything else around me fell by the wayside. My partner took over the running of my family in this part of the world while all my ammunitions were engaged to save my parents in the other side of the earth.

Despite all that, I failed. After their death, I was numb with pain and my brain, which had worked over time during this horrific ordeal, was tired and non functional. I had trouble making simplest of decisions for a while. I still have trouble focusing and I simply look at the books on my bookshelf but never pick one up. But Sean took good care of everything around here so I could focus on what was important at the time. Of late, I have slowly started engaging with the world again. It truly seemed like I was drowning. And just recently, I feel I am slowly emerging from a quagmire of sorrow and despair.

However, today at work I realized my brain has not completely shed all of the cob web from my recent bereavement. I am generally good at problem solving and figuring out solutions. Today, though, I got a phone call from a customer whose account was somewhat messed up and needed some detective work. While analyzing the problem, I thought I should be able to straighten it out yet my brain completely shut down while trying to find a solution. I called our customer service supervisor to solve the issue, which she did in a minute. Much to my surprise, I did not call myself an idiot. I acknowledged, instead, that I need time to be where I was before my “normal” was rudely disrupted and I will give myself that time. I am determined to nurse myself back to health. Self love is an important step in rebuilding and re-emergence. I will never be the same but I will learn to live with the void. It will take time and I will give myself that time.

Blurry and fading

I have already written a blog about aging. Apart from some physical distress, like diminishing eyesight and creaking knee, I do not mind getting older. It is a natural process and I find it pointless fighting it. This blog is not about aging but about becoming invisible, fading – literally!

I had read in books that women of a certain age start becoming invisible to the world. I have reached that age where I have started fading. People at stores and restaurants, often, look through me rather than at me. Here is the reality though – I love being invisible. As an introvert, I have tried my best to be invisible all my life and on occasion, when I have been thrust into spotlight, I have been most uncomfortable and after, drained. So being invisible to the world due to my age is a boon not a curse. I guess I am more than happy with the world seeing past me because the few people who matter most ‘see’ me.

This aging phenomenon is most interesting. With age, my outward appearance is somewhat fading. The sharp lines of the jaw area have slackened, the skin is loosening in an unattractive manner, the wrinkles on my forehead and laugh lines around the mouth are gaining prominence. The blue black hair of youth has significant strands of grey in them. I particularly love the grey around my temple. I feel it adds a certain depth to my being although my aunt in Kolkata shrieked when she saw me on a video call recently.

“Eki? Tor chul peke gelo?”

(What’s this? Your hair turned gray?”

Even my eye brows are thinning and look sparse. I think the thinning eyebrows are primarily responsible for this faded out look. I do not think about this much. Then why am I writing a blog on my slow fading, you ask? I am writing the blog because I took a selfie which was somewhat blurred by natural light. The irony became clear. My blurry, faded selfie looked beautiful. I don’t think this slow invisibility of a brown, middle aged woman is unbeautiful at all. I daresay this faded phase is rather pretty!

I thought of ending the blog with my photo but upon rereading this post, I felt this one reeked of narcissism although I was really going for the irony. Is this narcissism though, or self love? Anyway, narcissism is a sin, right? Just to take the narcissism angle out of the equation I will reveal that I used an eyebrow liner to fill in my sparse eyebrows.

There. Fixed it. 🤣