Baby Gianni had a little tummy bug so we stayed home from work. Gianni quickly got better. Then, of course, Judah caught the tummy bug...he filled his bed with vomit, filled my hair with vomit, filled the couch with vomit...diarrhea, diarrhea, diarrhea. While this was going on Rafe was TOTALLY bored. He didnt have Judah to play with, he craved attention, and he got into EVERYTHING. The whole day Rafe talked my ear off, telling me all he knew about pachyderms, sharks, narwhals, the eating habits of alligators, he informed me that he, in fact, still has a peebis (penis) and so does daddy and the brothers--Gianni's is a baby peebis--but not mommy, mommy has milk; but aunt Candice doesn't have milk she has a peebis. I normally LOVE having him talk my ear off, hearing him jabber on pretending to be a narrator on a nature documentary, telling me the odds and ins of every animal...EVER...but not when I am constantly having to deal with diarrhea leaking out of diapers, and am racing around madly sanitizing a house full of sickening vomit germs. Later, Jay caught the bug, went down hill fast and spent most of the late afternoon/night in bed in a homemade blanket cocoon, moaning. On top of this, the weather, 14 inches of snow, made it MISERABLY cold; as I have mentioned before, I HATE THE COLD. Now that I have prefaced this post, I will shamefully tell you, I failed to dress yesterday (and today, but let's just focus on yesterday)-lame excuse, I KNOW. I needed a shower; it looked like I had dumped a bucket of oil on my hair THEN stuck my finger in a light socket. I had makeup smeared all over my face from the day before and heaps of burp up dried and crusted all over my hoodie. I looked and felt like a cave man...a nasty, hairy, stinky cave man...covered in drool, vomit, and poop. I did however, manage to gain a better understanding of the importance of self-care, in this case, dressing myself.
Yesterday, I experienced, in one form or another, these feelings (this a long list, so bear with me):
Irritability and resentment
More suspicious, feeling threatened or alienated
More gloomy or depressed
Feeling nervous, apprehensive,anxious and tense
Drained, no enthusiasm, lack of motivation
Cynical or inappropriate humor (I find nothing wrong with this one...)
Loss of confidence; poor self esteem
Unsociable
Restlessness
Loss of appetite or overeating
Memory failing, particularly short-term memory
Loss of concentration; easily distracted
Worrying
Muddled thinking
Less intuitive
Increased sensitivity – more easily offended or upset
Persistent negative thoughts
Impaired judgement
Coincidentally, yesterday I didn't dress AND I experienced that whole list of things in one form or another. Given there was a lot that happened yesterday, many stressors, bad situations, etc. I am in no way saying that my lack of "dress maintenance" caused those symptoms. However, those are symptoms, compiled from differing legitimate health and medical websites, regarding lack of self-care. WHAT?! Did you read that? DO YOU HEAR THE WORDS THAT ARE COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH?! THOSE SYMPTOMS (and I only listed the ones that applied to me yesterday) CAN OCCUR DUE TO LACK OF SELF CARE!
How I decide to dress for the day is directly related to how I feel. I feel first and dress later. Yesterday, nobody felt right-I didn’t feel well; did I want to pull out all the stops and dress? Well, hell no! I pulled on whatever was closest to me and dressed the way I felt.
While it's nice for me to think that appearances don't matter, the fact is, my clothes can have an effect on my self-confidence. Something as simple as how I dressed CAN affect my attitude, my mood and my level of motivation. Multiple times yesterday, I would walk my the mirror, sigh, hunch my shoulders, huff and puff, and complain about nonsense, then go sit down at the computer and make comments to Jay about all the stupid people on facebook (not you of course...), bitch about the house not being as picked up as I would like (and not doing anything about it), and ever so EVILLY nitpick everything (seriously, like a piranha to a chicken leg). I was a total negative SOB yesterday; IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT I NOT BE A NEGATIVE SOB, I have a husband and children who NEED me, who depend on me, and in someway, look up to me. I need to be the BEST Vanessa I can be.
Changing the way I dress, putting time and effort in how I look HAS consistently effected how I feel and HOW I ACT. When I dress well, when I feel as though I look good, I feel better, I feel more productive-I am more productive, I'm more creative, I'm outwardly happier, I feel more centered, I have less the anxiety, less stress, and I feel emotionally stronger...I feel empowered. I am starting to believe (this is a scary thing for me to say...) dressing is CRITICAL to cultivating my self confidence and building my self esteem.
I realized, instead of dressing according to how I feel (like I did yesterday), I need to start dressing anticipating the benefits I have felt and experienced via wearing my big girl pants. The saying, "Clothes make the man" unfortunately, is just not true (there are many people I would like to slap in a James Franco suit...oh) but how clothes are making me feel, is ACTUALLY helping me become the person I want to be. It's a step.
Tomorrow I will dress.
Yes, I failed to dress AGAIN (I did put on make up, straighten my hair and immediately schlapped my hair into a schloppy ponytail...omg DAMN PONY TAIL...AGAIN).
This is the only thing I am going to mention about my outfit today...Forever 21 stud earrings.
Please, no comments about my manly sideburn.
3 comments:
o hush, you. those are not manly side-burns; it's just delicate, feminine wisps that keep the delicate, feminine face warm during not-so-delicate bouts of WHY IS THERE SO MUCH SNOW IN OKLAHOMA ALL OF A SUDDEN?!
plus. okay, lady. you don't need to get all glammed out when being the glue in a family of under-the-WHY-ALL-THE-SNOW-wth?!-weather boys. your job of beauty was keeping the entire family together. now here is some soup & some chocolate. :D
PS: i apologize now if i wind up leaving a comment to every blog entry written ever on this site. why did it take me so long to start actively posting here?! WHY IS THERE SO MUCH SNOW IN OKLAHOMA?
THE SNOW-I KNOW, RIGHT? Its finally starting to melt; its about damn time. Snow is as pretty an useful as (to quote my dad...) an asshole on my elbow.
As far as the dressing, I didnt dress because there was so much going on; like you said, I am the glue for my family. Ultimately, my family is the responsibility I will not kick to the curb (like I did my clothes)...sometimes the glue stinks (and OH I STUNK) but it is still glue. SO, I know I am being hard on myself---BUT, AT THE SAME TIME, I did decided to dress 365 days (legalism schmegalism). These "sick days" are like marijuana...sick days are a gateway drug...it's a slippery slope M-dog.
I did, however, get an odd sense of joy when I broke my rule...probably because I LOVE BREAKING RULES; like cutting in line (im such an asshole, an impatient asshole.).
'Speak when you're spoken to!' The Queen sharply interrupted her.
'But if everybody obeyed that rule,' said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, 'and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that -- '
'Ridiculous!' cried the Queen. 'Why, don't you see, child -- ' here she broke off with a frown, and, after thinking for a minute, suddenly changed the subject of the conversation. --Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Sometimes we need to break the rules...
Im hard on myself.
i've noticed that you're hard on yourself! too much, lady-v. TOO MUCH. you don't wanna make m-dog mad-dog, do ya? (i'mma huge sissy-pants when it ultimately comes to anger/animosity; i talk a big game/play a mean piano but that's pretty much the extent of it. also, i am very short. so it's not that intimidating.)
i am inspired by the psychological/analytical lists you make about your emotional statuses. there's something very abstract albeit fulfilling about the way you list them. i've started to be way more candid in items of my own predicated on this, bytheby. not that either one of us needs a lesson on HOW TO BE A BLUNT FACE.
and TELL ME ABOUT IT. i LOVE being a sneaky weasel-pants when it comes to rules/boundaries/ things like that. THE DRESSY MAN WON'T KEEP US DOWN!
(speaking of which, i will get off of my lazy, photo-editing behind to snap a picture of the new lavender dress onto which i luckily stumbled b/c it is a sleeveless princess cut with a cute little belt--bodice-y thing full of flowers and purple and i feel so incredibly girly when i wear it and i am inspired by you [AGAIN] to gush about it b/c i never do girly stuff unless there's some kind of celebrity-esque party thing going on. otherwise, i sit around in my version of sweat pants, which are typically faux-velvet belt-tie boot-cut lazy trousers and a black tee-shirt with a robot on it.]
i just do not know how to be girly, and to reiterate, i am equally as hard/pressure-fueled on mahself. b/c it's like motivation, you know? we're our own little drill sergeants. that means stuff gets DID....unlike the hair, whoops.
i love how spastic you are, too, and random. it's a cohesive randomness but it feels very close to home in my brain-parts.
*friendly nod*
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