Atonement.

And so I have learned the sin of selfishness
I dared to spread my wings too soon

I am reminded yet again
Of humility;

Of how utterly undeserving I am of you.

I will pay my penance in good time;
A thousand silent tears
A thousand screams you will never hear.

Forgive me if I flinch
At my martyrdom

I will never forget to smile
Even if I am burning on a pyre

It is easy to concede defeat
To those far greater than you will ever be

I love you enough to let you go.

And in the bitterness of altruism
I pray that I have found atonement.

Click here for a discussion of Atonement. 

A Thousand Thousand Fearless Things #54

Now Playing: Breaking Down (Acoustic) by Florence + The Machines (all alone on the edge of sleep, my old familiar friend comes and lies down next to me)

#469: I'd rather not kiss someone with anyone's permission, you know?

#470: Towering slices of cake and mountains of whipped cream. The sheer decadence of it all.

#471: 6km uphill hike. The views were worth it ;P

#472: Let's just be glad that it's sixteen year old sensibility and not thirteen year old giddiness that is handling the here and now

#473: My best friend <3

#474: Is it weird that I celebrate losing weight by...eating?

#475: Late night brie binges

#476: Talking to Belephant: quoting Taylor Swift lyrics as conversation

#477: So what if I have weird comfort food? Nobody's gonna see me pigging out in my pyjamas. 

the lies we tell little girls part deux: am i not feminist, then?

Now Playing: Fix You by Coldplay (when you try your best but you don't succeed, when you get what you want but not what you need) 

Women are a little hypocritical sometimes. Or, rather, we're forced to be a little hypocritical.

We all have this fantasy that we'll meet someone wonderful who will love us, warts and all. But then we never let anyone see us, warts and all. We're never allowed to.

I first started shaving my legs when I was eleven, and I've been dutifully living up to social expectations ever since. Well...not really. I can't stand plucking my eyebrows, and my eyebrow razor is dead, so that is that. It's winter, so I'm wearing jeans and tights a lot, plus I cut my knee, so I haven't really shaved my legs in...a very long time.

Now, you'd think that this would reflect on the idea that personal grooming is for aesthetic purposes - i.e. for other people, because I've only slacked off because circumstances dictate that nobody's gonna see me in my Chewbacca glory. Which is not exactly the case. Point the First, I am very, very, very lazy. If my eyebrow razor is broken, no amount of insecurity is going to motivate me to fix it. Point the Second, I'm too busy getting vinegar in my eye and washing sugar out of my hair that by the time I lay eyes on my razor I'm bored, incredibly lazy and the water's starting to run a little cold. Point the Third, I love the feel of shaved legs, really, I do. Eventually I'll shave them, even if it's not sundress season yet. But I am experimenting with feeling good despite the fuzz. And it's working, so why break the chain? Point the Fourth, I'm not really a very hairy person. Nobody can see my eyebrows, much less a few stray hairs that I haven't singed off yet. And you'd have to be pretty alarmingly close to see how lazy I've gotten with shaving my legs, and I didn't even know I had arm hair until I held my arm up to a light.Which leads to Point the Fifth - even in summer, if I can get away with it, shaving is not a mandatory daily ritual, where slovenliness is punishable by death.

Am I a bad feminist for shaving? Some might argue yes, because I am - shock horror! - succumbing to social norms; hypocritical social norms, because I'd never judge a guy for not shaving (actually, that's not true...stubble is amazing).

It has been ingrained into my head that hairlessness is beautiful; feminine. I know for a fact it is not. Everything feminine, we are born with - hair included. Just because I have body hair doesn't mean I can't be a woman. But it's not me that I have a problem with, it's society. The people in society have been raised to believe that women look a certain way, without considering what it takes to look that way. Think about it. Anne Boleyn seduced Henry VIII and never touched a razor in her life. Our forefathers managed to get the deed done before Schick razors were invented. 

I wish I was strong enough to be like Mayim Bialik, who is a kick ass feminist who has proudly told the whole world that, despite being a red-carpet-strutting actress, she's never touched her body hair. But I'm not. I'll put a razor to my legs eventually. You'll probably never see me in au naturel glory. But...I'd like to think that, one day, I'll meet someone who not only loves me for who I am, but also for how I want to present myself to the world. 

A Thousand Thousand Fearless Things #53

Now Playing: Set Fire to the Rain by Adele (I let it fall, my heart, and as it fell you rose to claim it)

#454: It's so sweet that you thought of me. Despite ten blisters. I missed you, too.

#455: Girl talk! Estrogen rush! Sushi picnics!

#456: Sweet little smiles from prams.

#457: Jew in the City. Fascinating.

#458: Suuuuper cold

#459: I know...the exit...is here...somewhere...

#460: Snow White and the Huntsman. 

#461: If you ever see me attacking my hair with a paintbrush, I haven't gone insane. It's my way of begging my hair to hold out for another day and behave.

#462: I'm so very proud of you, mummy

#463: I got your birthday present ;P

#465: I burned my tongue on ramen noodles. I'm not such a good Korean, after all. 

#466: I'm not above giving up my seat for little old ladies. Especially if they ask nicely. It's the ones with attitude I would help along in a different way. 

#467: Warm puppy hugs


#468: Sitting by the pool reading a book and soaking up the sun

  

 

On Modesty

Now Playing: Sparks Fly by Taylor Swift (the way you move is like a full on rainstorm and I'm a house of cards, you're the kind of reckless that should send me running but I kinda know that I won't get far) 

It's no secret that, when I'm not in frumpy school uniform, I'm normally dressed to impress. I'm not above designer lipstick and a push up bra. There are many reasons for that - I don't think people realize how exhilarating it is to feel comfortable in your own skin when you've spent so long battling with demons like depression and insecurity. Secondly, when I look good, I feel good, and I'm not the kind of person who thinks that everything that is remotely pleasurable is a sin. Thirdly...dressing up, flaunting what you've got and being comfortable in your own skin is part of respecting your body, and that is the core element of modesty.

Modesty, to me, is about self-respect. It's not about what you can and can't wear, what you should and shouldn't do. It is about loving, trusting and respecting yourself, and this should reflect in how you choose to purvey yourself to society. I'll wear pretty dresses and low cut blouses because I know I look good, and I feel good. The times when I hid myself under layers and layers of clothes, I didn't love myself. I tried to hide, and that is never a good thing. I respect myself enough to show myself, just as I am, to the world.

But modesty is also about saving a part of yourself for, well, yourself, and for the people nearest and dearest to you. It's not about how much you save, and who you save it for; the act of doing that, of taking the time to think about what your physical body means to you and to the people who are special to you physically, spiritually, emotionally, etc. Of course there are parts of my body that are sacred. I decide that, because it's my body.

I love attention. We all do - it just depends whether we choose to kid ourselves or not. I know I dress for attention, but not all of it is how much I show - it's bright colours, crazy prints, daring to dress outside of the petty trends and fashions that are made for anorexic mannequins I will never be. I'll never be a wallflower. Not with bright red converse sneakers, anyway.

If you've got it, flaunt it. I'm sixteen. How many more years do I have to enjoy my hourglass figure unmarred by childbearing or age? I'll enjoy it whilst it lasts. Beauty is a transitory possession; but it's a possession nonetheless, and it does nobody any good if you keep it hidden away.   

There is nothing wrong with loving attention. There is nothing wrong with being told that you're pretty, or enjoying the fact that people think you're pretty. There's nothing degrading about people admiring and enjoying your physical beauty, just as there is nothing degrading about someone admiring and enjoying your intellect or wit or humour. In fact, I find it equally, if not more offensive when people constantly harp on about how clever I supposedly am, and totally ignore that I am a living, breathing person with plenty other faults and virtues, and not just a walking dictionary. Only loving someone for how they can arrange words on paper is just as insulting as only loving someone for the shade of lipstick they wear (flutter by Calvin Klein, by the way). When people love you, they love you as a whole. Including what you look like.

Women - actually, anyone, but seeing as I am a woman I'll stick to what I know - who dress immodestly are those who don't respect themselves, and don't garner respect from others. There's a difference between flattering and flashing, tasteful and tacky. Immodesty is when you mistake a severe dependence on public opinion for independence. Immodesty is not loving yourself enough to trust that others will love you for who you are. Immodesty is not reserving some part of your physical and/or emotional self just for you and for the people nearest and dearest to you. When I dress, I have great respect for my body. I know what looks good, and what doesn't. I know that how I dress attracts the kind of attention that I like, but then again I know that the people who mind don't matter, and the people that matter don't mind whatever I do and whatever I look like.

I think you can dress modestly and still wear bright colours, low necklines and figure hugging dresses. It's not what you wear, it's how you wear it; the attitude. I wear what I wear not because I'm desperate to keep up with fads or because I believe that people will only love my physical body and not everything else I have to offer. If you ever see me out and about, I'm never quite with the times; but everything I wear is bright, and cheeky, and colourful. Because that is who I am, and, at least for me, the mirror doesn't lie.

  

Clucky.

Now Playing: In My Place by Coldplay (if you go, if you go, leave me down here on my own, then I'll wait for you)

After my Modern History essay we all stumbled out of the class to stretch our legs, massage our fingers and pray futilely we'll never spend another hour clenching sweat-slippery pens whilst trying to remember what happened in 1962 apart from the formation of the Rolling Stones. Despite that...I took one look at a baby and melted, and gleefully held him in my arms, ignoring the stabbing pains in my shoulder as I cooed at his sweet sleepy face and cute purrs of baby contentment.

My shoulder still hurts, but I don't care.

When I was little I was pretty small, because hospitals are a fast lane to sudden weight loss, so I was kept in the nursery at daycare when I was a toddler. I think my infatuation with babies started then. I have spent so much time playing with babies, rocking them to sleep, chasing my cousins with bottles of formula, holding them in the car, giving them bubble baths...it's exhausting, back breaking work, but I love it.

Baby talk is the cutest. I can spend hours and hours singing to babies, talking to them, reading to them. I think babies are the cutest when they're about a year, maybe two, years old - they have their own little personalities, it's adorable. I love having huge eyes on me, I love tiny little wrinkly hands clenched tightly around my fingers, I love soft kisses on my cheek and affectionate baby chatter as I tuck them in or read them a book.

In some ways I love everyone else in the same way. I've learned, perhaps too soon, how to love unconditionally. Altruism...sucks. Seriously. 

One of my relatively unknown talents is that I can normally make any little kid smile, just by smiling at them. It works! Every time I see a little kid in a pram, I can't help but smile, and when they smile back - and they always do, unless they're asleep - it's the cutest thing in the world.

I love how innocent children are. This year I saw innocence as a liability, a vulnerability, something too dangerous to keep with me for very long. I...have grown up a lot this year, and whilst it's all very exciting it's very sad to let go of your childhood, to let go of a time and place where you believed in fairytales and happily ever afters, trading simplicity for the sordid. I love how trusting children are, I can't help but smile at their gullbility, their sweet and simplisitic attitude towards life. I wish...I wish I was like that again.

I was one of those girls who was born a mother. It didn't matter how angry I was at boys, how often my heart broke and all my happily ever after dreams crumbled in my hands or how angsty my (admittedly, very brief) period of 'boy germs' were; I always knew that my destiny was to be a mother, to get married and start a family, and, feminist or no feminist, successful career woman or not, I know I will be inconsolable if that doesn't work out.

Women live in a time and place where we are caught in a void; it is wholly unacceptable to be the driven, career minded woman with no room in her life for men and babies, but it's also equally unacceptable to want to nurture house and home. We've always lived in a world where women who enjoy sex and intimacy are shunned and persecuted; but now we also live in a world where the word 'frigid' exists, too, to further discriminate against women. The balance is, I think, harder than is appreciated by the male dominated world of politics, academia and the corporate ladder; all of us girls have done the math over and over in our heads, but we all know that the numbers don't work in our favour; something's got to give, and whatever choices we make will be condemned by someone or another. I want to chase my dreams; I want to go to university, have a sparkling career, write books and be famous. But I also want to fall in love, fall in love with someone willing to give me what I have always given and received nothing in return for, I want to get married and I want to have that domestic, homey bliss. Both ambitions are my worst-kept secrets, because I know most people will look down on one or the other or both, and I know I can't have everything. But is it really so bad to want success and accomplishment and a sweet baby cooing in my arms and a ring on my finger? It is exceptionally hard, as a young woman still trying to find her feet, to find the balance between increasingly differing expectations - from myself, from my friends and family, and from society as a whole.  I don't know what I want, who I want to be. I don't know if I can live up to expectations when they are so contradictory and confusing and not at all clear cut. And I know that, no matter what I choose in my life, both personal and professional, there will always be one bigot or another that will accuse me of being less of a woman.

This year is the year when we're meant to forget that we are living, breathing human beings; to forget that we are emotional, vulnerable, sexual people, to forget that we think and feel and dream and crave...anything and everything. I feel like I am forced to deny myself, deny who I am, how I feel and what I want; I feel guilty when I indulge myself, allow myself too many moments of being too human. I can't turn it off. I know how important this year is, but I also know that, in the grand scheme of things, everything is important, even the things we try so hard to supress and turn a blind eye to. I can't explain away the way I feel; more importantly, I can't put it off until later. It's all happening, now. I'll only be sixteen once, I'll only fall in love for the first time once, heartbreaks happen in the here and now; and they'll happen later, too, but I can't save the worst till last. I can't put any part of my life on hold, for now, at least. I know it will happen sooner or later; I'll have to choose to prioritise either my professional or personal life. But for now, I won't put anything on hold.  

Smile

Now Playing: Cameo Lover (Live at Sing Sing) by Kimbra (this is non stop baby, you've got me going crazy, you're heavier than I knew)

I must confess, I've never really liked my smile.

I don't mean that in a glib way; I just never understood why people choose to compliment my smile of all things. It's not the most glamourous or graceful look. I've seen my smile in the mirror. It's not the prettiest thing in the world.

I've never quite mastered the subtle, innocent, graceful smile. When I'm not grinning like a gleeful five year old baboon I can only really manage that kind of coy, sexy, flirtatious smirk that I imagine Anne Boleyn employed to disasterous effect - I guess you could say that the disasters I inspire are of a very different sort. Which is all very good fun, but sometimes it sends the wrong sort of message to the wrong sort of people, you know?

I'm getting sidetracked.

Despite not being a huge fan of my infantile, cheeky smile, I smile a lot. You wouldn't think it, but normally I'm just a happy sort of person - I haven't been of late, because the end of term blues caught me, so do forgive me if I haven't been my dapper old self recently. Smiling, for me, is very very involuntary, but I'm very very self conscious of my smile. Because in that split second, you're not in control; you're looking right into someone's eyes and they're looking right into yours, and for half a heartbeat you're letting your guard down and letting someone in. For me, that just seems a little too vulnerable.

Some people have the most amazing smiles, you know? The kind of smile that just takes your breath away. I love how everyone, from the wrinkly old grandfather to the even wrinklier baby has that kind of sparkle in their eye, I love the little winks, the subconscious gestures, the tingles down your spine. When my best friend smiles at me, it doesn't matter how tired I am or how angry I was at him, it melts my heart, just a little. It is most unfair, actually.

I'm sure there are other people who don't love their smile, don't like how their faces scrunch up very unflatteringly and shows too much of themselves, but I suppose the people who love you will always think you have the most endearing smile in the world. 

A Thousand Thousand Fearless Things #52

Now Playing: Something In The Way You Are by Kimbra (you're breaking me in the best way)

#443: Trucks in a river ;P

#444: How the hell am I supposed to stay mad at you when you smile at me like that?

#445: I got a hug from Sherlock Holmes

#446: The rain washed away your footsteps, and mine

#447: If you really want to know why I like you over him...you don't have his temper.

#448: Ten minutes being clucky with the politics teacher's son. Adorable!

#449: I'm sorry if I'm being cranky.

#450: Dear uncomfortably painful zit. Please go away. 

#451: Extreme dedication to no-poo = quite a few bad hair days. In my defence, also quite a few good hair days, too

#452: Disarmingly sexy? 

#453: Running down the corridor near the gyms. Little year eight boys make zoom zoom noises and stare blankly in your direction. You ask them what they're looking at and they reply 'you have...really...nice...hair...'

why I'm a blogger.

Now Playing: Two Way Street (Live at Sing Sing) by Kimbra (and I think I'm ready for you to get under my skin)

A lot of people ask me why I am a blogger. Why I bother. How I can even begin to find the time, or the energy, or the motivation, to write.

I know I have a pretty low traffic blog. I know exactly what it takes to get a high traffic blog, but I don't do it. I always knew what I wanted for this blog; I wanted a place, just one place in the whole world, where I could just be me. Where I could voice my opinions, anything that is on my mind, and have the comfort, the solace, that someone, somewhere is reading them.

What I have on my hands is so, so much more than I ever thought possible.

A lot of people think I am wasting my time, writing on my blog, because I don't print out my blog, hand it to my teacher, and get a grade for it. As an English student, I know that is not true. Any writing is better than no writing. The freedom of unassessed work, of writing things with the exquisite liberation from scrutiny, is bliss. Truly. I love it. And, to be perfectly honest, it has helped a lot with my writing. This is the kind of writing that I know, that I love best. You have no idea how comforting it is, to eagerly pull out the writing section of the English paper, and relax as I write a blog post. A blog post that nobody will read, sure, but I'm in my element. When I write, I've had four years of practice. I like to think that I know what I'm doing.

I write on a blog because I wanted people to know that it doesn't matter how much you push me around, how cruel you are to me, I still have a say. I still have eyes and ears, and I still have a tongue. I'll send that text message without any qualms, and I'll dish out all your dirty laundry with a clear conscience. I like the power of a blog, even a blog as small as this one. It makes people sit up and pay attention to you.

I've always had a pretty good memory, but I've always had a very selective memory, too. There are some beautiful moments, and some very heartbreaking ones, that I want to record, somewhere, in a time capsule of my life. I am writing from a fascinating, and often very troubling time, and it will be interesting to look back at the growing pains. Nobody else can say that they can remember exactly what was going through the head of their twelve year old self. 

Blogging is also very personal. I'm not the kind of person who can bury secrets deep in their heart; it would slowly kill me. I need to talk, and blogging has been a much-needed outlet. It's very theraputic, to sit here and whinge to my heart's content. It would make for amazingly selfish conversation but, amusingly, pretty good reading. Ain't that a bitch?

Blogging has also had a very unexpected consequence. When I blog, I am myself. I'm not dressed up, I'm not wearing makeup, I'm not wearing a blank courtier's grin, I'm not fighting back tears. Blogging is sometimes as daunting and revealing as stepping on stage nude, but it's something we all should do from time to time. It's through my blog that I've had the courage to say that this is me, and I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not; and it's also through my blog that I've met the people who have taken a long, hard look at me and said 'you know what? I love you for you, too'.

I'm a blogger because I'm the kind of person who's head is always swimming. I'm a blogger because I'm that kid who's always spinning, forever spinning. I'm a blogger because I like to think that I'm not that kind of teenager lampooned by Hollywood and the mass media. I'm a blogger because we all have things worth saying, and ideas worth sharing, and there's something very healing in the deeply altruistic process of wearing your heart on your sleeve and putting all cards on the table. 

Now Playing: Hardest of Hearts by Florence + The Machine (There is love in our bodies and it holds us together, but pulls us apart when we're holding each other, we all want something to hold in the night, we don't care if it hurts or we're holding too tight)

Sometimes I genuinely prefer the company of boys. Because even though there's all this business of falling in love and getting your heart broken over and over again, I can live with that.

Put it this way. I'm good at being a bitch, but I don't particularly enjoy it.

I'm done with the petty playground politics of high school. I'm done with the bitchy backstabbing, all the lies we tell each other, how we play with the status quo to see what it takes to make it fall in on itself. I hate how some people treat others with total disdain and no respect, and how selfish we have all become.

But I know exactly how to play this game. I know you all think I've forgiven and forgotten everything, but some things are just too easy to remember, especially when you try and repeat the same tricks on a different person.

So go ahead. Lie to yourself that it's all for the greater good, that you're not really doing anything, and that you don't believe in prolonging the inevitable. You learn a lot from the bottom.

Surely you would have known that I know the ropes by now. Surely you know that I don't take sides.