Entries

26 Jan 2022

Thoughts on a Hair Cut

Over the last several months, I’ve spent increasing amounts of time with people I know who are queer and/or neurodivergent. A recurring topic over this time has been the idea of “delayed adolescence” and what that might be and what it might look like. In case anyone is curious, it boils down to the idea that queer people might go through a period later than the typical adolescent period in which they have the ability to fully explore and realize who they are, what that means, and how they fit in the world that they might not have been able to experience as teenagers and young adults. It seems to have this sort of effect as well on some of my friends who have realized they are neurodivergent as adults and have had to reconsider these things.

I really like this idea. I find it freeing in some way that I cannot quite explain. Perhaps it has something to do with everyone deserving the opportunity to truly understand themselves, no matter when it comes or maybe it has something to do with the utterly rebellious nature of it; after all, you’re supposed to have your entire life together by, what, 25? Exploring who you are in your mid-to-late twenties in defiance of societal expectations is nothing short of fantastically dissident. It is also right.

And I love this for all y’all.

It also got me thinking about the entire way that I’ve thought about my own age.

I’m going to back up for a second. Last week, I cut off all my hair (well, most of it) and re-dyed it purple and pink. The color isn’t new; in fact, I’ve been doing this regularly since I colored it pink in June when it finally felt safe enough to do so (in pandemic terms; we’ll get to other kinds of safety in a moment). At this point, I also cut it all off, but with a bob in mind. I cannot even begin to express how much I loved that first cut and the pink hair. I honestly felt - and still feel - that this is what hair color I’m meant to have. After several months of short hair, I had kind of decided that I wanted to grow it back out.

Then the Hubster and I went to see the new Matrix movie. The hair had to go.

And so, the hair went.

I’ve always wanted to be this cool. In many ways, I always have been this cool. But, I finally feel this cool.

Which brings me back to the idea of “delayed adolescence,” because it’s easy to look at this and wonder if it isn’t that. I mean, last year, I realized I’m bi. I’m entering this new year after having cut all my hair off and it continuing to be purple and pink. I’m going to get another ear piercing next week. I desperately need another tattoo.

Yet, at the same time, I am 33. I feel 33. I love being 33. I know who I am and am confident in that in ways that I have had yet to be, despite having an overabundance of confidence up until this point as well. This time, though, I have the age to go with it. I’ve softened in some ways where appropriate while continuing to not shy away from the things that make me myself. I have a deeper understanding of things that I just didn’t get as a younger person. But none of this new sense of self has been a re-rooting of who I fundamentally am or where I fit in. I know that and I’ve been lucky enough to have always known that.

It is also true that I spent a good deal of time in my 20s wondering what some of these things would look like. Could I pull off colored hair? I didn’t know because I never tried it. Could I cut it all off? It did get pretty short in 2017, but nothing like it is now. Can I take a risk, not knowing what the outcome will be? …

…

… I’m not going to get too far ahead of myself here. The point is that I spent an unignorable amount of time as a 20-something choosing the safe options because that’s what I felt needed to happen in order for… something. I honestly still do not know what that something is.

In many ways, though, it comes down to this: I am now the person I wanted to be in my 20s, and it has been my 30s that has given me the courage.

And you know what? I love this for me.

19 Jan 2022

On Productivity

As another Winter Break ends, with little-to-nothing to show for it in terms of academic progress, I find myself once again thinking about what it means to be productive. Don't worry, this isn't going to be one of those things wherein I, the author, talk about how not productive I am and then proceed to list the impossible feats I have accomplished in an impossible amount of time while complaining about doing nothing.

No, it won't be that. While I haven't done nothing because that simply isn't true, the amount of things I have done over the past four weeks are simply too few to justify, though I will concede that I have reasonable explanations for them.

This is also not about those.

I spend an unfortunate amount of time thinking about how much I am not productive. Of course, I realize that if I worried less about how productive I was, I would have more time to do the Thing, whatever it may be. Or, it can spiral from there and I find myself having not worked on anything at all for a week (or longer).

I have, naturally, tried the various tips and tricks that people who are - or at least say they are - productive give out to try to increase my output to a level that I feel is appropriate (we will explore that another day, I'm sure). I set little deadlines for myself, and promptly ignore them because they're not something I owe to someone else. I write myself to-do lists, or at least consider doing so, buying fun stationary and setting short-, medium-, and long-term goals that I can get the satisfaction from checking off said list, and then don't follow through. At least I have a growing stash of notebooks to never use, since if I don't start at the Beginning of Something, why bother starting it at all?

I know, deep down, that none of this makes sense. I would never allow myself to miss important deadlines for someone else. I also know that I treat myself differently than I treat anyone else, disallowing myself of any other things I would and often am happily willing to dismiss when others do them. But I am not other people, I am simply me, though it would likely be helpful if I figured out how to navigate myself through the lens of myself, allowing myself the same understanding that I openly and lovingly give to other people.

Instead, here I sit, nineteen days into January. Nineteen days into a month means said month is already over. I could try again at any point, but this one is already over, right?

Right?

I could try to get my things together now so that I am not scrambling to be ready when February, the infamous New Month, begins, only for the negative self-talk to begin over how I could and should have done this for January, knowing how I am about things (though, I will say, I started using a Aug. 2021-Jul. 2022 calendar yesterday that I did not use for the entirety of the last semester [and I have not yet gone back and filled in the calendar from last year so I can pretend to have had my life together], so perhaps progress is being made).

I could also think of all the things that I have done already this month. I presented at my first professional conference this past weekend. I've helped finalize the syllabus for the class I'm TAing for. The three of us didn't go completely bonkers while having the plague with varying degrees of intensity (losing your sense of smell and taste is weird, y'all). I've continued an exercise routine for the longest I have in awhile, even managing to be gentle with myself when things go a little sideways, like this week. I got about half-way through a book on the plane. I've been able to semi-consistently cross-stitch. I continue to play [too much] GW2. I'm existing during a pandemic.

There are, in fact, many different ways that I could view my "lack" of productivity that are more realistically reflective of how much I actually do. And I look at the words that have come before this one and I can see the progress, the productivity. There are many little things that I have done and clearly continue to do that are, in fact, that nebulous and poorly defined concept of PRODUCTIVE that I am chasing. All I have to do is manage to acknowledge it.

But, I think we all know that that's not what I'm going to do.