Today I Bought A Mariachi Hat
These days when I look in the mirror I like who I see. It’s such a simple thought, a simple feeling. Yet it’s taken mountains to climb here. So much of my life has been spent picking apart all of the things that make me who I am. My soft tummy and double chin, my stretched skin and cellulite, padded arms and slim ankles. Small hands and feet, my thick thighs. For most of my adult life the woman I saw in the mirror was a monstrous form not to be witnessed by the human eye. It feels so sad to think I felt so contemptuous about myself, so ready to feed myself with such narrowed visions of what beauty could be.
Recently I’ve been really loving myself, I’ve been working hard on my internal self, my heart and mind, quietly against the odds of past relationships which tried to form me into ideologies of who they wanted me to be, my bright colours and floral patterns and weird shapes shined through, I fought so hard for myself my voice getting lost along the way, but still I knew in my heart who I wanted to be, who I wanted to be loved as. So many people have tried to put me in boxes, tried to dim my light. It is with pride I am able to stand with myself and say ‘I love you’ I am able to say ‘you survived it’ It was a long fight, one I should have opted out of to save myself the torment of being any less than my true most authentic self. Even if sometimes my battle was fought against myself and silly woman’s magazines trying to mould me into various uninhabitable shapes. Or horrid ex boyfriends telling me I would look like a clown if I wore that dress to the pub.
Still I worn my dress. Still I dug out my gold trousers. My soft body in bikinis dancing in the sea. Still I would reach for leopard print and florals and doc martens. Still I wore silk bonnets to bed. Still I was myself.
I never thought that at 32 I would be able to stand with almost indifference in front of a mirror, I am so used to my form and my soft body, it seems so natural now to reach for wacky clothes and to walk out of the house and just feel comfortable with how the world sees me. Today I bought a mariachi hat, I was standing in the charity shop, my mouth agape at the beauty of this hat. It hung from the wall velvet and green with lashings of gold thread and gold embroidery, my voice bellowed across the chazza ‘I HAVE TO HAVE IT’ my greedy hands clambered all over it, I pretended to debate over the £15.00 price tag. ‘Do you want me to take your picture in it’ Ella asked me (my birthday girl and best friend companion for said trip) ‘YES’ I cried crowning myself and preening. The till ladies laughed and told me it suited me, was I buying it? Was I buying it?? It was mine before it was even on my head, it was already living on my bedroom wall before I had even took it from theirs. My serotonin and impulsivity made in mine in meer seconds.
Proudly I walked around Yate shopping centre in my new hat. I wore it in the taxi. I wore it in the sun drinking cocktails with my friends. And you know what I felt?
Blissful.
I felt absolutely blissful to be at such peace with myself, so at peace with my body, mind and spirit. I have never felt so comfortable in my own skin as I have over the past year and I’m not sure what is was about this hat on this day in this sunshine that gave me that reminder, that feeling. I just feel so different to who I used to be. There is a determination in me that didn’t exist before. A self belief that I can carry myself in any situation, that I will be okay. I have a deep core self love for my soul that I have never experienced in such a pure primal place, it emanates from my heart like electric buzzing off my skin. It feels so powerful, it feels so good.
I have waited such a long time to be so in love with myself, so in love with life, I just want to keep building on this secure feeling, this self belief.
Who knew a mariachi hat could do all that?
Until next time babies,
Love from,
BITSIFIND
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