Yesterday, I wore a dress and high heels and make-up and hairspray to church. I looked great and felt misleading to some extent. I'm such a jeans and t-shirt kinda girl, I probably wear a dress or skirt six or seven times a year, hairspray even less! Because of my surgical incisions, I did not want to wear jeans yet, I was concerned the waistband would rub against my stitches. So my choices were sweats (and only rough looking ones because the others were unlaundered, aka dirty) or a dress. Now to be completely forthcoming,I could so get by with sweats at my church, it isn't about a dress code there. In fact, I think in the past I have worn sweats on days I was teaching Sunday school and I do tend to rock my WVu sweatshirt in the fall after great victories. I chose the dress and the hairspray and lipstick and heels because I wanted to look nice, more than nice, womanly, pretty again. Realizing in some ways this surgery has robbed me of some of that feeling of womanly or youthful confidence. And before you start to think I am completely shallow and vain for spending a paragraph on what I wore to church, hold on I am going somewhere with this.
I wore the dress most of the day, rocked the dress, but the whole time I was in it I was internally crying out for my jeans and t-shirt. (and flip flops; the weather was springy yesterday!)
In a way the dress felt ingeniune, something I put on that did not represent me, embody me. Now I am a girl who doesn't struggle too much with body image issues or beauty issues. I am quite comfortable in my skin, not constantly comparing myself to others. I know I have flaws but I tend to focus on my attributes. I am not sure how or where I picked up body image confidence; my struggle is more with personality insecurities. I was completely comfortable with how I looked in the dress, that wasn't the issue. What was vexatious about my appearance yesterday was that I felt like it was not a true representation of me, or it wasn't the me I wanted to present. I wanted the ponytail and the fresh face and the jeans and flip flops.
Those features or items speak comfort to me and I am all about comfort in every aspect of my life. I desire to be cozy and warm. But more than that I am a giver of comfort, of calm. Several years ago I recognized I had an inclination to encourage people. I can very easily walk alongside individuals and support and cheer for them. I believe it is a gift I have that has helped in many of my relationships. It has helped to make me a good mother, a good friend, even in management when I worked outside of the home. I think it even comes out in my writing. I have this desire to see people where they are, love them there and encourage them to strive for more and believe for more. So for the past five or six years I have worked on this gifting or this personality trait. I am an encourager, it is a central part of who I am. I will also go as far to as to say the last four or five years most of my encouragement has pointed people towards my faith, towards Jesus, towards hope in a living,loving God.
I sat in church yesterday in my fun wrap dress and heels, feeling completely at a loss of who I am, feeling unauthentic, even in my dress, but more so in my faith, in my personality, and in my life right now. Struggling with a desire to still want to encourage others; yet I am so disheartened in my own faith and the reality of my life lately. I would not go so far as to say I am faking anything. I can still feel beautiful and fun in a dress. I don't believe I am faking the faith either. My faith is still there, it just seems so distant and marred right now. It's more than a choice of dress, it's more than a discouraging feeling.
Who am I as a mother, a friend, a daughter, as a woman when I am in the midst of struggle and unquiet in my faith, in my life? Me who gives calm and quiet, who points towards peace yet doesn't feel the peace herself?
I know others have solutions for this, some answers have touched me, others aggravated me. I feel a pushing and a pulling along as if someone else can just drag me back into an accord. Right now in my life there is struggle and dissatisfaction and anger and frustration, loss. I guess the thing I can still pull from my faith, still rely on is that there is hope. All of this will be worked out but I get to be who I am, in the midst of my struggle, in the day to day of my life, all of who I am,not just the pretty girl in a dress.
http://holdonandbelieve.blogspot.com/
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2 comments:
Not to make light of your serious post, but I wore a dress to church yesterday too (actually, a skirt and top), with heels. Jon told me that he forgot I had legs. I guess I don't wear dresses or skirts all that often either.
It is a horrible and wonderful thing to be in that place where you feel you need to regain your footing, discovering that what you believed about yourself IS still true, but there are other things, too -- just as you say, getting to be ALL of who you are is a rich privilege, but alas usually a somewhat scary one. Go forth anyway, I say. Perhaps the expression "comfortable in one's own skin" came out of just such a time.
- MARILYN from As Good a Day as Any
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