Looking Like...

Do you ever wake up and look at yourself and just feel confused?

Like, you're looking at your messy hair, those bags under your eyes that should be there after eight solid hours of sleep, and your job or lack one or classes or whatever, and just say, "this wasn't what I'd hope I'd be at this point. What I promised 13-year-old me/16-year-old me/20-year-old me/30/40/50/New Years Me/Me From Yesterday Me I would be."

Frank Iero, of said band

I've been having that a lot lately. Especially after listening to an NPR piece about my favorite band from middle school and high school (and still today, if we're being honest with one another). I was heavily bullied in middle school, a lot of people know that about me. It made me hard, it made me mean, but, wouldn't you be too after being told to kill yourself on the regular constantly? And this was over a band. But when I would come home, put my headphones on, and do whatever it was the 12-14-year-old me would do, I'd think about how I'd look years from now. And I do mean "look," doing as well, but I was really stacked on the looking part. I really lacked confidence, I didn't think I looked quite right or cool enough, even to fit in with the "misfits" I akinned myself to. I wanted to fully express what I felt and knew in a visual way. I was really into art, so I made lots of art to express in that way, visually, so naturally I wanted to be just like my art. I wanted a visual recognition of myself.

Kat Von D, the platonic heart throb of my teenage years

On TV I worshipped the looks of people like Kat Von D and Audrey Kitching, I found myself jealous of all the art the bands I loved could wear so proudly, I swooned over the theatrics of the make up and hair that the 20-plusers had at the shows I would go to. To me, all these people were fearless creatives. I wanted, strongly, to be part of that pack. I wanted to wear hair like that club, I wanted to have the art like that club, to some extent I wanted to be part of the history and tapestry of "the scene."

In high school I started dying my hair myself and dreamt of being a tattoo artist. When I was 19 I started collecting piercings and shaved half my head. In college I dyed people's hair on late nights and lurked around the windows of my local tattoo shops, discovered eyeliner, and finally succeeded in having a completely black closet. Now I still dye my hair, I cut it myself in the sink, I still don't entirely know how makeup works, and I don't have a single collared shirt because I've cut all of them to bits. But still, when I go out to shows, or walk down the street, or just go through instagram or tumblr, I think "gosh, I still don't feel quite right."

There are lots of things I really wanted when I was younger, and there are a lot of things, physically, I still want. I always wanted tons of tattoos. Piles of them. I thought, and still think, that they are one of the greatest artistic inventions of humankind. But my mother is adamantly against them, I mean has told me she'd think I would be ugly with them, disown me, etc. You know, the standard emotional black mail you go through with a child and their new fangled whatcha-ma-call-its. Of course she would never disown me, but still the idea of her gagging at the sight of me gives me great pause and adds so much unwanted anxiety attached to something I find so beautiful, and negativity that I just can't emotionally handle.

Grace Neutral, tattoo artists who hosts Alternative Beauty on I-D

I definitely thought my hair situation would get better, and it hasn't. Which I've discovered is a pretty universal feeling. (Seriously, name one person who loves their hair at level of 80% unconditional love. Just one.) My hair is fine, and even thought there's a lot of it, it always seems to fall flat but also manage to curl at the perfect angle to hit my eyes and mouth. On top of that I had to deal with the unforeseen issue of growing out a partially shave head, which left me with a mullet for a solid 5ish years, no matter what hairstylist I enlisted to help.

I have most of the piercings I want, my septum the most coveted of the six I have. But I still get jealous of ears stretched with tear drop stones, and those who have high enough pain tolerance to pierce every part of their ear. I still want to pierce both nostrils, but there's only so much I can put my mother and father through, who surprisingly only put up real a fuss before piercings and mercifully leave me be by the end of the ordeal.

Me, age 13, 2006

I still live almost exclusively in cut up band shirts but I'm never happy with my jeans and still want to cry a little when forking over the cash for them after having my butt put under mirror scrutiny. I do have a colorful Doc history (just like the punks of the 70's/80's I'd google image search in the dead of night at 12), and for the most part I only buy what I really love now a-days. And I still only wear two pieces of make up regularly that work for me. However, I've forgotten how to be fearless and wear red lipstick and I'm wondering if tweezing my brows is cutting it anymore. 

And for the record this isn't an emotional "Surprise! I'm Ugly!" styled pity party. I actually think I'm pretty alright, to be honest. It took me a really long while but I do love the me I wake up with. I'm just wondering why I still have this disconnect where I feel like I don't look like myself in regards to the things that can change and relate to a certain vision or aesthetic I'm endeared to and want to convey. I.e. my hair, my lack of tattoos, the fact that I never actually look my age due to something I'm convinced is my unwillingness to part with winged eyeliner.

Me, age 22, 2015, looking quite like myself, I think

I'm getting closer to waking up and getting showered and dressed and looking at myself and feeling right.  As I cut my hair in the sink and section of pieces of hair for my partner to bleach, I can feel it. I can feel I'm getting closer to really looking the way I want to look, but sometimes it's frustrating. I just want to be there now. But I'm trying to get used to being patient, and adjusting, and insuring that when I do try out a new lipstick, it looks like who I see myself as, and it affirms me. And that feels really good. 

Is there anything you're changing about yourself that makes you feel more like you? Leave it in the comments.