Let's see where this leads
/It’s an unusually quiet day today. To stop myself from nodding off while I wait for e-mails or phone calls, I decided I needed to open a new entry and type whatever comes into my head without overthinking everything as I usually do. Maybe this is the key toward expression, or maybe this is foolishness, but I’m going to ride it out and head wherever the muse takes me.
I mentioned dating yesterday; there’s a level of jest in the suggestion, but how much? I downloaded a few of the apps a little while back, but rarely log into them; at this point they’re more to satisfy curiosity than actually connect with other people. I’m trying to read between the lines of the brief write-ups and the pictures that accompany them, but to be honest, I’m not particularly intrigued by most of what’s on there, and don’t feel much of a connection to whoever I manage to chat with. I’m used to being single, and don’t really have the drive to take the emotional risks involved in finding a partner, and in the rare cases I do get a case of the feels for someone, I panic. I’ve written about this part a few times before. It’s not that I don’t have any sex drive, but my sociability and libido aren’t enough in sync to really do the casual hookup thing; I’m not really enough of an “in the moment” person to do it either.
Thinking a bit about age as well…most of the crowd of freshmen at the city’s universities were literally babies when I started at Mount Allison. I don’t see myself getting involved with anyone under 25 but it’s hitting me that the people that are currently in their late 20s were born in the 1990s, which always seemed so young to me before, while people born in the 70s are firmly middle-aged at this point. I’m seeing youngish-looking people with more salt in their pepper or mostly grey hair and wondering how close we are in age; I’m finding more of them head-turningly attractive. What will my age group look like as we get older? Perhaps we won’t be as desperate to cling to the illusion of youth as the generations before, but will we seem as patriarchal and matronly as the elders that came before us? Maybe this just happens regardless of what generation which we are born into.
I’ve been growing out my beard the last few months but I think it’s time to finally trim it back. I always feel gross with hair past a certain length on my head, no matter whether it’s on my scalp or on my face, and I don’t see myself spending money on beard oil or regular maintenance trips to the barbershop to shape it. Some people can pull off the long beard, but I don’t see myself as one of them. I think there’s also an aspect of control at play here: this is part of my appearance I can take responsibility for, and with a completely shaved head there really isn’t much room for error or need for the skills of an artist to maintain its shape and style; it’s about making sure you get every spot. I’ve also gotten used to not having to pay for haircuts in the last 15 years.
I don’t know if this the right word, but I actually feel a little dysphoric once my hair grows past the point to where the face in the mirror is that of a balding middle-aged man. I’m not sure why that is, but as I’ve said before, I’ve always felt an emotional lift once I get my head back to total baldness. I’ve also always found there’s something inherently cool about a woman with a bald head or extremely short haircut; I don’t believe anyone should do it unless they want to (or, in cases where this is due to reasons outside of their control, display it unless they accept it or feel comfortable about it), but if you feel more real or like your true self with less hair, go with that. Normalize it. Just look however you want to look, figure out what makes you feel better about heading out into the world, and go from there.
On that note, I need to buy some more clothes again. I don’t like spending a whole lot of money on that either but I’m getting sick of the outfits I wear to look semi-acceptable for a business casual setting, and can tell some of my button-up shirts and pants need replacing. I don’t know how well they fit my body anymore, but I also feel like it’s “work drag”, and don’t have enough clothes that are more appropriate for a night out. I just don’t trust my own sense of style on this front.
I would love to hear your thoughts about these topics or how your own personal aesthetic has evolved over the years, if only to feel like I’m not just posting entries that evaporate into the ether of cyberspace.
I am publishing a post every day in November for NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month).
