Plastic Surgery

Part of me understands it's not my body; a person's personal decision to change their body has no effect on me.  

But another part of me argues that all bodies are beautiful and something as invasive and synthetic as surgery shouldn't be needed to see that.  I'm not saying that people who get plastic surgery are necessarily vain or vapid, but I do wonder why a person would do something so drastic to change their appearances.

And I admit a strong personal bias.  When I was 10-14 all I wanted was rhinoplasty, I thought it would solve all my problems: my peers would stop bullying me ("you're too ugly to rape" "you're so ugly you should kill yourself"), my teachers would stop telling me that I was failing as a future housewife, the family taking care of me would let me out of their basement, my mother would stop blaming me for how much she hated her job, etc.  I actively compared myself to models in magazines and celebrities and my popular peers, just like all the women I knew did.  And I figured that if I couldn't afford rhinoplasty by the time I'd turn 16 or if it wouldn't work - if my ugliness couldn't be fixed - I'd just kill myself.  Replacing these toxic people with friends and family who genuinely loved and supported me, and finding positive messages to replace the hate, saved me.

Of course I can't know whether each person getting plastic surgery is led to it for this reasoning...but nobody should have to go through that and no amount of surgery can fix toxic relationships and self-loathing.

On Jealousy

Jealousy is a normal emotion with which a person can have a healthy relationship.  Feeling jealousy is usually a sign of something bigger going on, primarily one's current situation and place in it.  It's extremely important to communicate about jealousy in any relationship, and gets even more important in polyamorous relationships.

Most often, jealousy is a prominent aspect of the fear of abandonment.  So long as jealousy is kept in check and doesn't explode, this fear can be alleviated through reassurance from one's partner.  Dismissal, invalidation, and neglect all exacerbate jealousy as they reinforce the fear of abandonment.
Sometimes feeling jealousy is brought about due to the partner's behavior.  Communicating jealousy should include learning how each person wants to be reassured - this would best be done as part of the polyamory discussion (negotiating time and safety and boundaries, etc.) but may change as time goes on.  For some people, simply having sex more often is enough reassurance; for others, it works to have a date together for each date a partner has with other people.  And if you can't specifically name what would be reassuring for yourself, it's ok!  Experiment!  Eliminate what wouldn't work!  It's a process, like all aspects of relationships.  When one's partner isn't willing to work together or insists on using only their own reassurance method, there are more issues in addition to the fear of abandonment.

And sometimes feeling jealousy is brought about due to an individual's emotional state.  Many people feel the fear of abandonment at different times in our lives for many different reasons, regardless of the current relationship(s).  An unhealthy relationship can certainly worsen that fear and sometimes a very healthy, involved relationship can alleviate an individual's fear - I recommend against using relationships for that, though.  Overcoming one's own fear, especially when it's been validated in the past, is very difficult and scars can so easily be re-opened.  Small steps, self-care, distance from incompatible/disrespectful people, and intrapersonal communication help one overcome that fear and heal from whatever has brought it about.

And sometimes jealousy has nothing to do with fear, it's envy of another person's situation and that's it.  When one's partner is out of town and having fun for example, it's entirely possible to feel jealous without fear or resentment - this is neither unhealthy nor healthy, it just is.  It's possible to feel both happy for one's partner (and the people they see), jealous of them, and have fun on your own all at at the same time.  Usually treating oneself to something special can eliminate this envy, or at least push it to the background until the situation changes.

Above all, learning to listen to one's emotions, figuring out where they come from and what they're telling you, and handling them them in a healthy way (working out at the gym, partying, cuddling with kitties, crying over a pint of ice cream, whatever) are vital to functioning as both and individual and a partner.  We all mess up sometimes, learn and apologize and move on.

Actively Recovering Catholic

My life progression thusfar: Catholic, anti-Catholic, angry ex-Catholic, apathetic ex-Catholic, recovering Catholic, actively recovering Catholic.  My active recovery began as genuine interest in how most parishes differ from the abusive parish of my childhood (St. Monica's in Chicago), then how they differ from each other; eventually each Mass I attended became more personal as it was one not influenced by St. Monica's.  My Catholic identity never really went away, despite how rightfully opposed I was to it for a long time, and I want a more active healing than apathetic distance can offer.

And now I have no idea what I've gotten myself into or what I'm doing or where I'm going.  My stance on dogma hasn't changed: I just don't believe it.  I'm not Christian in any sense: Jesus was a cool guy according to the Gospels but the Messiah, salvation, sin, etc. aren't a part of my spirituality at all.  The theology absolutely fascinates me and I love learning it.  I do believe that something is going on, and attending a nonjudgmental Mass makes me feel just as connected to that something as hiking through the mountains does - just in very different ways.

Aside from my apathy regarding dogma, I do believe in the Catholic Church: when open-hearted people gather together in a sacred (sacred in the sense that it isn't mundane) setting to share a ritual passed on by generations, something is attained.  Yes, the Church hierarchy has done many terrible, awful things and I face those head-on and call people out on their bullshit.  And few people know better than I just how cruel  laypersons, even those who win community service awards in their parishes, can be to each other.  It is because I know the horrors in the Catholic Church that I value the goodness in it and seek it out and want to be a part of it.  Other religions have similar disparities and rituals of togetherness, Catholicism is just the religious language to which I'm attuned.

Of course I'm ready to become more involved in my local Catholic community AFTER moving to an area where there's almost none.
I really have no idea what I'm doing.

The Ugly Kid

That's a true story, albeit summarized and shortened.  I was The Ugly Kid in K-12 and until I left the horrible parish of my childhood, that's all I was.  At 10, I began saving up my allowance for rhinoplasty and at 15, I concluded that nobody would ever want to date/marry/kiss me because of my ugliness.  This was mostly because of my broken nose, but only recently have I realized how much undernourishment and confinement in a basement had affected my appearance.

Although high school friends & faculty greatly improved my self-image, college finally valued my mind above all, and my post-school life has been fantastically slutty, a small part of me is still The Ugly Kid.  It is liberating: how I look to others doesn't factor into my functioning 95% of the time, I don't spend any money on makeup or jewelry or hair junk or wonderbras, someone who's attracted to me but doesn't care about who I am is easily filtered out.  And when someone calls me ugly, I just don't care - my first and last thought on the statement is "wow you're not creative."

Recently, my history as The Ugly Kid just happened to come up in two separate conversations and both people replied that I'm beautiful.  When I tell my story, that's not the reaction I'm going for.  I appreciate the thought, but I'm not fishing for compliments - that's not the point of the telling, I use my experience to teach and connect with others.  "But you're so beautiful, I can never believe you were The Ugly Kid" has good intentions but leaves me feeling invalidated.
I don't like it when someone, anyone, calls me beautiful save for 2 circumstances: when I'm wearing something formal and when I'm wearing nothing.  I only remove my clothing when I have control over the situation, and I put a lot of work into looking good at formal occasions.  Otherwise, I really don't understand why anyone would call me beautiful.  Do they want something of me?  If someone knows me well enough to want to compliment me, I'd like to think that this person knows that I'd rather be called smart or witty or twisted, etc.  Let me own that I was The Ugly Kid and help me seek revenge on those who prey on other Ugly Kids.

In addition to feeling as though all my efforts to get where I want to be are futile (and therefore, I am futile), I'm also very sensitive to space.

I have a theory as to why I have this sensitivity, but I won’t get into it right now.  A new town, city, state, area, etc. is like a new art gallery: to be thoroughly explored and encountered and absorbed.  Travel is very appealing to me because of this, and I’m very particular about where I call home.  This is why relocating from the MidWest to the SouthWest is so integral to me, whatever resonates in that space also resonates in me.  It’s not something I can articulate verbally very well, so it’s a good thing I’m an artist!

Chicago is my birthplace, my family is from Mauston, WI.  I’ve only ever lived in Chicago, Milwaukee, Madison, and Savanna IL.  Although it makes me sick to think on my nearly 28 years spent in the same place, the MidWest is part of my identity.  Although a part of me will always be a MidWesterner (and I’ll probably move back at some point in life), finally leaving the area involves a sacrifice.  While I was applying, interviewing, and being told that I’d get hired in the SouthWest, I was willing to give up the large portion of my MidWesterrn identity in order to take on a SouthWestern one - the one I want.

Although I’ll be living with the person I want to live with and I’ll be glad to finally leave the MidWest, moving to Nashville still sacrifices that MidWestern identity.  I won’t move as the same person, I won’t be in the same space nor in the space that I prefer.  This honestly isn’t to poop on Southerners; it’s me and it’s the area.  The South doesn’t resonate like how I resonate.

And if I’m incapable of attaining what I want, no matter how hard I work, do I deserve the identity and area that I want anyway?

Meaning vs. Discipline

I'm currently reading The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose.  A student at Brown, Roose spends a semester at Liberty University.  Liberty U is the conservative, evangelical Christian, homophobic, creationist school founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell and Roose argued, correctly, that it's more foreign to the average Ivy Leaguer than most European countries.  He pretended to be a freshly converted evangelical in order to better fit in and learn secrets, he also took on various cultural behaviors such as no swearing or sex and joining the church choir - this was both to pass better and to experience the culture more effectively.  His main shock, at least up until page 170, was that nearly everyone at Liberty U was exceptionally friendly while also violently homophobic.

The second Gen Ed course, which he was able to take as a "foreign exchange student," focused on social and political issues and how an evangelical Christian should approach them.  These were largely simplistic and scathing stereotypes on gay people, people who have premarital sex, wives who have jobs outside the home, etc.  One statement by Roose jumped out at me:

"But aside from the patently offensive content, my biggest issue with [Gen Ed II] is the way it bundles political and social issues with religious issues, and what that means for a guy who's trying to give Christianity a fair shake."

This goes along with my previous post about dogma pushing away people, particularly young people, who're looking for personal meaning through religion.  Liberty U and many other religious institutions argue that personal meaning follows discipline.  I'm not saying that they're 100% wrong (mostly because it's not a right/wrong issue), but that argument is a poor way to interest potential peers.  Roose began to reap some spiritual connection through his altered behavior, similar to how his mentor A. J. Jacobs became more spiritual through his year of following Biblical laws (The Year of Living Biblically).

I argue that while it is possible to find spiritual connection through discipline, the process isn't simple enough to teach in a class.  Both Roose and Jacobs CHOSE to alter their own behavior, not because someone told them to, and they didn't do it out of shame.  And both of them explained that the discipline didn't lead directly to spiritual connection: instead, the decision to alter their behavior also included the decision to alter their attitude.  That isn't something that can be taught, demanded or shamed - which is precisely what evangelicals don't understand.

Spirituality vs. Religion

http://beliefsoftheheart.com/2013/07/23/i-wonder-if-sunday-school-is-destroying-our-kids-2/

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/?hpt=hp_c4

More and more people are seeming to realize that personal meaning draws people to spirituality, while dogma pushes people away from even trying.  Sometimes I wonder if the fall of the Catholic Church and religious hierarchy overall would be the best thing, so regular people can start over ourselves without the bullshit.