Things are changing in my life, because I am making them change. This year is all about leaving the house, shrinking, wearing nice frocks and tending to the friendships which I have not inadvertently killed. There may even be deeply unfeminist acts like fake laughing at the unfunny jokes of hot men.
This year, I am not allowed to spend ANY Saturday nights in the vicious circle of feeling too awful to go out, watching reality TV talent shows, eating pizza and getting obese.
There is nothing inherently wrong about being zaftig, but if it is getting in the way of living the life you want, then something has to give.
Recently Dodai at Jezebel wrote an irreverent article about 'fake it till you make it', a means of continuing to get nicely dressed however terrible you feel in order to stay afloat. Akin to a Cosmo article of what you might wear to a work thing/evening event she actually put in the collage. You can see it by cut'n'pasting this link: http://jezebel.com/5739317/dressing-for-depression
Some of the reactions were akin to 'I have the proper depression and I consider it a personal affront that you would consider it possible for me to get dressed when I am in a trough and that it will have any significance if I do. How very dare you, these ideas are deeply damaging. Piss off.' But I think cultivating a healthy irreverence for your misery is a good thing, and getting nicely dressed (whatever that means to you) is a very, very good thing. Accepting the possibility of small but relevant change in the sphere of your control is a good thing. And whatever your epistemological stance, doing shit has an excellent evidence base when compared to doing the same old thing, when the same old thing is curtains closed, wearing crusty joggers and simultaneously feeling several co-existing yet contradictory kinds of terrible.
Putting a frock on will not fix your existential pain. But baby, neither will pizza.
www.nataliedee.com
1 comments:
I've been wearing make-up the past couple of months, for similar reasons.
I also think that, however dumb it sounds, cleaning one small part of your living area for fifteen minutes helps. At least, when you clean a tiny bit, you've accomplished something.
I really enjoyed the collage at the link you posted. The funniest part about it, for me, was that I think that if I watched "Pride and Prejudice" when I was feeling down, I would kill myself. Which only goes to show how different people are! But I get what she's saying there, and I completely agree.
You're not a sell out to feminism if you laugh at some guy's dumb jokes, as long as you see the irony there!
Thanks for updating us!
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