Are you your own worst critic?

My crazy cooko amigo H sent me this beautiful video just recently. 

It made me recall a moment.

I remember having this discussion with my good friend Eve earlier this March, though I can't quite recall how we ended up with what I'm going to summarize for you. And that topic was her badonkadonk or the junk she has in her trunk or arse or booty or boot-ey or... anyways, you got my drift. 

I was saying how much innocently in love I am with it. Seriously! Let me paint you a picture. Better yet, let a familiar picture do half the work here. Remember the Man Ray photography, where an unknown female's body was portrayed as a cello? Well basically that is my girl Eve. Her booty is shaped like a perfect anatomically incorrect heart that will make every sensible straight guy turn his head. And I almost feel like I'm not doing it justice by calling it... an "it". Feel free to leave some of your name offers in the comments. 

I can't spill any more details about how this conversation went ahead, because that would just be inappropriate for a larger audience. Spoiler: dirty comments. Hey, I'm her friend, I'm allowed the usage of graphic language. 

And after being as persuasive as I could be and not sparing on uncomfortable details she broke into tears, telling me how she has never been satisfied with it. How it's "flat from the side" and "this" and "that" and a bunch of other insignificant details she's been holding onto foolishly. 

And it was at that moment, as she later confessed, that my words helped make peace with what she saw when trying to glance from her shoulder at the image staring her back from the mirror. 

I know this is much like a continuation or a repetition of this post.

But you've definitely heard once or a couple of dozen times the saying like "you have to love yourself before anyone else can", right? Honestly, whoever said that? I mean, I don't entirely disagree with it, but as much as I've seen and felt myself then it's the empathy/sympathy/compassion relationships we have with the folks around us that will eventually help us find that love for ourselves. I think what that saying means to proclaim is that we shouldn't expect another person to perform miracles with Me, Myself&I and Image.  

A compliment may be all what's missing for making peace. 

Thanks H for the video recommendation. 

21 things

21 things I've learnt during the first 21 years of my life in no particular order.

1. Everything and everyone deserves to be understood. Receiving it is another story
2. People, who make bad/lame/just-unfunny jokes, are their best when making fun of their own lack of humor
3. Sour candy can make anything better
4. You can't fix broken people, but you can hear them out
5. Robbie Williams was right- secretly deep inside "all we've ever wanted is to look good naked, hope that someone can take it"
6. And Barbra Streisand also, when she sang "people, who need people, are the luckiest people in the world". Fighting against your demons with someone else is much more efficient. Besides, human connection is onne of the most beautiful things you can experience
7. Bullshit happens. It just does
8. When you have too much things to finish, YouTube will almost always suggest watching an Ellen DeGeneres video
9. You can never watch just one Ellen video
10. 90% of a change is taking the first step. The Universe will take care of the rest
11. Nothing can compare to the love you can have for yourself
12. Truth is subjective
13. A deodorant that will not leave white spots on dark clothes does not exist. Just stop searching for it
14. The weirdest and most eccentric people only seem weird/eccentric until they've found their element. After that we refer to them as geniuses
15. Openly dirty-minded people are most fun to be around
16. Suffering is overrated
17. Love is a game of egos
18. Save a document after every 5-10 minute. Save yourself from a future heart attack.
19. The best things in life come in threes. E.g bacon, eggs and toast or meringue, strawberries and whipped cream or shampoo, conditioner and oil
20. Life nowadays would be so much more complicated without Google. We should all be thankful
21. You don't have to have it all figured out by 21

And apparently you still have some time

Picture source: PostSecret

Shoes from out of this world

THE shoes of 2012.
This obsession with galaxy shoes began from a moment of confusion. Followed by serious moments of experimenting.

With time my tidy-whitey sneakers began to change their color from brilliant white to rusty-ish. And the rusty spots were impossible to remove even with bleaching. 

But, as they say "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade".

So to hide that spotty rustiness I decided to cover them with paint. 

The outcome was unexpected, based on mistakes, but reminiscent of what seemed to be a galaxy print. So I full-on went for it. 

The first pair was a pure experimentation. I wet them and used a somewhat watercolor technique. The subtle clouds and stars are from dabbing the rusty spots with white acrylic paint. Something that come from SOS hiding ended up as a brilliant idea as it gave the image another dimension. Instead of actually covering them with a thick layer of paint I blended/melted the thin layers of colors. The finishing step was making small clouds of stars with a toothpick and bling-bling shinier stars with a thin brush. 

That pair was made purely for the purpose of making really colorful interpretation of what a Photoshopped galaxy would look like. When they received some attention that lead to orders from fascinated friends I dug further and used actual images as sources of inspiration. 

Yeah, best pictures ever. Taken on a bed. Yeah.

So I would recommend you looking for pictures for an actual reference. It will make them look more realistic. Also YouTube is full of useful tutorials as well as Google. 

You can experiment with different techniques and different colors: layering colors or blending them in, using a sponge or a brush, painting on white sneakers or black sneakers. Don't forget to tape the sides of the soles if you don't want them to get dirty, because taping is much easier than having to hide your mistakes with white paint afterwards. 

From my experience, if you use acrylic paint your sneakers will withstand a rainfall, even a flood, an unexpected hike in fields of wet clay and dusty trails, without even the paint cracking. 

So...Jane confirms. 

About love at first sight

To be honest,

I think the concept behind love at first sight is quite scary. It's believed to be the most romantic thing ever- when two souls unite unanimously at the first glance. To maybe grasp the concept of it all a bit more clearly let's think of something we've all went through and is fairly similar: shopping.
Right? Genius!

I know, you may be thinking about how it's not completely fair. Clothes and human beings.
Elementary, my dear Watson. 

Let's imagine this scene. You're walking around a clothing store during sales. Just wandering around, starting to feel a bit bored until you spot something. It's a piece you've been searching for seasons, but found nothing until now.
It's on sale. It's your size. It's perfect. You're in love.
You're almost dancing to the fitting room all giddy and excited. If you know what I mean. While you're standing in line (because it's sales season), waiting and anticipating, you're caressing the material and giving it a couple of up-and-down gazes while imagining all kinds of different scenarios that are probable to happen while fitting and wondering if that item will be merciful for your a-bit-wider thighs and the small bump you managed to pick up during Christmas holidays, but with all those worries you stop on that one image: that dress being the perfect match to your body. Finally, you reach the fitting room. And owh my. Well, let's put it this way. It's nothing close to what you had imagined and hoped. But during that silly fraction of time you managed to get so attached to it that you're starting to un-convince yourself of the faults.
"Maybe I can sew something additional the the hem so it wouldn't be so short?".
"The zipper isn't working that smoothly, but I can definitely fix it, somehow".
"The pleads are not doing what they are supposed to be doing, they need some directions".
"I can probably dye it for a more fitting color".
"Maybe a push-up bra will make my chest look a bit more appealing in this".
 "I'll use professional help when I can't manage myself"

If you've been thinking about that one specific thing to come into your life for too long to bare some more then I've got news for you. It's a trap! A trap you've set for yourself.
Yes, you are Winnie-the-Pooh, who set up a trap for the Backson- an imaginary monster- using honey as bait, but eventually forget about the trap and fall for the empty honey pot, because of a growling stomach and a naive mind. 
I've been watching too many animated movies. 
No, I'm not hinting it's foolish. No, I'm not saying it's that extreme. Yes, I do believe in magic and not the "ow, hey, what's a rabbit doing in my hat, silly rabbit, you" magic.
But when our emotions take over and our mind is sent on an all expenses trip to somewhere far from civilization we can get into some wacky business.
If you manage to keep a clear head then you'd take that item off and retrieve it back to where you found it.
If you've gone all ga-ga for goo-goo then owh-no for you, honey-boo-boo.
I guess it's all the cheeseball romantic Hollywood movies that have brainwashed us. Where men will do anything to get your attention, look like Ryan Gosling (or -insert movie crush-), kiss you passionately in the pouring rain while your mascara is dripping off your face and you feel like drowning. The women will be 170 cm tall with Grecian goddess bodies and wake up with flawless make-up.
Nevertheless, I do feel compassion when I saw Disney's Oscar winning short movie "Paperman". Don't hide it, you were also secretly rooting for this couple, even though you knew it was bound to end like that.
I just wish someone would just acknowledge the beauty and magic after that first contact, after the (read the next in a princess voice) "will we be finally united or not?" part.
It does seem like I'm expecting perfection from the first second, either be it with clothes or relationships. Here and now I will refute these beliefs.
But the question still remains- how much work and effort is still okay to not change entirely what was once there?

Self acceptance

The only thing beautiful about body issues and low self-esteem is that it's a shared thing.

I mean, we all have or had at one point in our lives the moments when we just don't feel enough. We see flaws in our appearance as well as in the depths of our identity. Sometimes we just don't know how to deal with ourselves. And even in moments of brief peace all it takes is wrong lighting in front of a mirror, a comment from someone dear, who just feels too comfortable with us, or even a comment from a stranger passing by, also from children, a pair of jeans, which should be your size, but somehow just don't fit, or a bad hair-day, even an uncomfortable outfit to chatter our image once again into pieces. Because that just confirms your earlier thoughts. "I knew it, it actually is that way."

Beauty has been such a great factor in how we communicate with the world and with ourselves. It's scientific, we gravitate naturally towards people with symmetrical perfect faces. But if you put a mirror right on the symmetry axis of your body and ask a friend to look at you from the side then there's a significant chance that they won't recognize you. There's nothing wrong with aspire towards perfection. If we understand where our limits are. 

But with our body image it's one thing. There are measures out there to kindly take advantage of. I'm not pro or against plastic surgery, for example. If it's what you feel the need for then, by all means, just go for it if you have the resources. But when taken too far it can blur the lines between the real and fake. 

I've had body issues since teenage years. All of a sudden my hormones had, what it felt like, constant raves in my body. All of which lead to a weight gain. And how this chubby little girl saw the world was that you won't be accepted by your companions if you're don't fall into the category of a standard beauty. I had friends that did fall into that. Friends who had prettier hair, longer legs, straighter nose, rocking eyes, slimmer body, etc. And they seemed to be living the "beautiful people lives". Back then it meant socializing and experiencing life to the fullest a teenager can experience. So certainly I made my presumptions based on what surrounded me. The glossy pages of magazines and interest in fashion did not help with that, but made it contrarily worse. Everything falling together I became ashamed of how I looked like. 

More towards the end of my teenage years I began to outgrow the weight gain, but didn't notice at that time. Never actually looked at the image staring me back in the mirror and seeing the reality, but an image I had of myself in the back of my mind. 

Now as I'm moving closer to my 21 years of existence I do feel like I have made remarkable steps towards peace with myself. I used to dislike my green eyes, because they were neither blue nor brown, but right in the middle. I did not like my ears, which are situated more to the outside of my head than I would have liked, because all my girlfriends were wearing circlets on their heads during summer days and I couldn't as I couldn't stop picturing myself as Dumbo. I hated my wider hips, bum and thighs and my rather - let's say-  soft belly. I had constant problems with acne. Problems with skin all together thanks to keratosis pillaris Friendly hint: don't Google it, there is some shocking image online. I was told at 13 that I had gray roots, which in fact was my natural hair color (it began to grow as what seemed gray). I'm very conscious about my  bust, which is most affected by my periodic weight gain-loss. As a woman I am "blessed" with stretch marks and cellulite. We can stop here. 
Never in my life have I been so "big" as I am today, but I feel okay with that. And instead of finding things to criticize about myself I'm turning my energy towards finding the things I'm proud of.Actually, I think now my ears are one of the most beautiful part of me and as a sign of peace I decided to make a third piercing right next to a lump that sets apart my right ear from the left, right next to a sign that shows how different my ears are form one another. I love my green eyes just because the are different and the fact that they are more of a mesh of different colors makes them the most representative thing about myself, because I am a mesh of personalities. I embrace my curves, even my badonkadonk, which makes my life hell, because no jean will actually fit me well. I do like my thin wrists and  visible collar-bones.  I like that I got freckles from my mother. I like my nail shape. I like the two birthmarks close together above my upper lip and on my right ear. I like my rather hollow back, it makes me feel more feminine. I know who I'm not and who I can't strive towards. Most of the days. More than ever. 

Was that something weird to say? Moreover, was that something weird to read? We're all used to thinking, hearing and reading about complaints. And whenever someone says something good about themselves we see it as cockiness. Or as in "good for you" with a side of sarcasm. Why do we do that? Why can't we let others be happy with what they have? Why can't we be happy with what we have? 

I have thought a lot about what triggered the changes in the way I see myself. I think there's definitely an amount of getting older and wiser about the range of power of change. In addition, there's a fair amount of positive relationships with the people around you. There's plenty of quotes out there that forward a message like change happens within and you can't love another before you love yourself and such. I do agree that the change happens within, but the triggers may be from the outside. You know, like your friends telling you how talented and gifted you are at something or your significant other hinting how mad and wild your body makes them. Maybe it all happens silently. Maybe it's someone close, who makes it work on a day-to-day basis with the flaws they have until you don't even think that they have any. 

No matter what form or shape, we all share the moments of self-doubt. But isn't it what makes us fragile, tolerant, understanding and open-minded about the world? Isn't it what makes us human? 

Love and other cover-ups

I'm probably one of the worst packers out there.

I'm unrational even when composing the obligatory list of shit I can't forget. I usually end up packing too much things, because "what IF there's this unexpected event for which the existence of one special thing is a matter of life and death and by chance that is exactly the item I left behind?". I'm also an exaggerator. That's practically all you need to know about me. Nice to meet you, too, random person in the internet. 

I was recently complaining to a friend about how I have no freakin' clue how to pack my entire life into one luggage for a longer trip. "It's just 20 kilos, c'mon" said the materialist aka me. 

"Your life is here," the witty young man said with an elegant gesture hinting to his heart, "not in a luggage." 

It wasn't until we parted later in the night when it hit me: I'm an emotional cover up-er. 

In the meaning that I replace the original meaning of an item or a feeling with another one, which I think is more essential for the sake of myself.

Remember how I wrote earlier about things not being just plain "things"?

I will still stand behind some things I said. E.g Certain items are a sentimental memorabilia. They are fragments of your past. They are memories. They are emotions. They are people

I mean it's true. Some items with a deeper idea behind them trigger emotions and/or memories. 

It gets loopy when you feel like your entire room is filled with those things. Then I start thinking whether I have really deeply unconditionally gotten attached to an item in my so far short life. Or am I covering them up with an emotion? Or am I a hoarder? 

I do connect with the reasons why people become hoarders, but I don't think I'm as far yet to be called as the last one...so I guess it's the first.

This reminds me of this page in "The Little Prince". If you ignore the original meaning of it you can kinda fit this picture into this context. What do you see? The cover-up or the real deal?

But in a way isn't it human? Don't we all get things mixed up sometimes? Either on purpose, when we are too afraid to admit the truth to ourselves? Or unintentionally, when we're experiencing something new for the first time? 

Kinda like with love, don't you agree?

Someone loves the idea behind the person, but not the actual person? Maybe you're just afraid of being single and alone? Or the other person is just too good under the sheets? Do they just represent the best period of your life? Or they are just able to provide the lifestyle you're interested in? Etc

What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. No more.

Money can't buy me love. 

And I will always love you.

Love me tender. I can't stop loving you. Where did our love go.

Love is all that matters. All we need is love. Can you feel the love tonight. Love is all around. Love me for what I am. Nothing's gonna change my love for you. Too much love will kill you. I can't make you love me if you don't. Without your love. You can't hurry love. Is this love. Where is the love. All for love. Love hurts. You give love a bad name. One love. What's love got to do with it. Addicted to love.

So sick of love songs...

No shit, man.

The more you listen to these love songs the more you realize that it can indeed be just about sex, need, crave, want, passion, fear instead. There is a fine line between need, want and pure love. 

How can you know exactly that what you think you are feeling is actually what you're feeling? Are you covering something up with love?

I guess it all comes down to past experience.

I've been in love 3 times in my short life. At least that is how I thought.

1st time. Kindergarten. C'mon, we've all had that one crush at a mildly young age. To this day I can't even remember his name. To be honest, I remember him more vaguely than the ones I had less interest. What I do remember is how me and my that time best friend used to quarrel about who would in the end marry him. I haven't heard from him since those days. -Want. Definitely a want. 

2nd time. Okay, please don't laugh. I'm being serious. 4 years ago. Summer. August. A fairly chilly night. My bare shoulders were covered by a slouchy cardigan. I was heading home. I passed the first door next to my section of the house. He was sitting on the second stair in front of the house. A bit older than me he had this Sinatra thing going on, but in a rebel kind of way. A wrinkled buttoned down with rolled-up sleeves, a vest unbuttoned at the front, skinny jeans and, my gosh, a fedora. We glanced at each other while I was passing him. You know that scene in a cheesy romantic comedy where everything starts going in slow mode? Yup, it went exactly like that. Believe me when I say that I'm not a strong believer of love at first sight, but back then...well, I was a teenager, I couldn't help it. It felt like the lovestory between Romeo and Juliet. Thank God it wasn't. Or else we would have died. But it did end quite tragically- I never saw him again. I wasn't that bummed out because of it. I guess I enjoyed the fairytale of it all and the sudden spark was magical. -Need

3rd time. Last year. We met at the beginning of spring. Owh, spring love, probably one of the most beautiful things one can experience. I guess you can call it the most "proper-ish" relationship of my life. But it was still kinda not that "real"? Anyway, it was complicated. Isn't it almost always? Our first contact didn't leave mutual feelings. For me it wasn't love at first sight. It was a journey. But falling for him was so natural. He was foreigner. 5 months older. Wow, was he tall or what? He was... very. He had the cutest dimples on his lower back. A guy with a handwriting that can be mixed up with an 8 year old's (the way he wrote -with his nose almost on the paper before him and the awkward grip of the pen- reminded also of a small boy that has just replaced his pencil finally for an actual pen). And with one of the weirdest sense of humors I've ever been against with. He made me feel beautiful inside and out. I never actually walked or sat, but instead I floated, while I was trying to catch the imaginary pink butterflies and bubbles surrounding me. Sometimes I felt so much that I thought I could explode into double rainbows and pink unicorns and purple confetti and purring kittens with milky whiskers and pixie dust and other happy shit you can imagine and spread joy into the darkest corner of this world. Yes, I was that bloody happy. -Love? I think it was love. Based on what I wrote earlier it has to be. Right?

With relationships I covered up, because I just didn't know better about love. At first it was the equivalent of need and want. 

Coming back to packing. I guess my relationship with "things" is is the second type- replacement. If you'd pull the veil off you could see fear beneath it. The fear of change. The adventure in front of me is most likely the biggest thing I've ever agreed doing and most likely will it change how I look at the world, my life, well, basically me. And with having things that remind me who I used to be then maybe I won't loose myself entirely. 

I'm excited for myself and at the same time frightened. 

But overall, if you compare a single human being with Earth, the Universe...a person seems significantly irrelevant. And in this imperceptible time, place and manner something as small as an individual has a likely chance to...you know... just get lost. In some way we feel safe with things that support our individuality. It's not something I think about daily, I mean, I just like the things I surround myself with. But in a larger sense they do keep me grounded, especially on days when I feel fragile.

I have no idea what I'm talking about. 

I guess I just have to get used to the idea that my life, with my identity, my loved ones and my memories, exists without material support. As long as I feel it then it's there, right?  

No more covering up. 

How are your relationships with cover-ups?