Simple Bravery

I read this over, and I think, "My god, you sound like one of those women who obsesses about her hairstyle and thinks the color polish on her toenails is a topic of global concern." Yeah, it sounds a little like that even to me. But I have a point, so I'm soldiering on with it, never mind how that voice is my head is going, "Goodlordalmighty, you are a shallow person. Did you know that? Also slovenly. Because I happen to know--even if no one else does--that you haven't yet taken a shower today. I think I'm going to rat you out."

So~~soldiering on:

I was a weenie kind of a kid, anxious and worried about everything, never a risk-taker, content to live in my imagination. I don't think I was like that as a little kid--it seems, in my faulty memory, to have happened when I started school and started trying to fit in, an impossible task since we moved constantly and I was always The New Kid, or, really, The Weird New Kid. If you're a smart kid with a funny (Texas=funny to the people of the frigid north) accent who also dresses weird, well:  trying to fit in is mostly an exercise is smushing yourself flat and being really quiet.

So no feats of bravery for me, the timid kid. Plus you know how people are divided into those who seek thrills and thrive on the adrenalin rush and those who say, "Eh. I don't think so. Where did I put my book?" I was the one looking for the book. It didn't help any that the first time I had a tooth filled I passed out. And again the day I turned 14 and my mother took me to the family doctor to--finally!--get my ears pierced, and I woke up on the floor of the exam room.

So I finished growing up assuming I was a total weenie and figuring I must have a pain threshold at about floor level. Possibly subterranean. It wasn't until I was much, much older that I discovered that I'm not particularly chicken and actually have quite a high tolerance for pain. All that other stuff was about anxiety and not knowing how to deal with it as a little kid. Turns out I'm just fine, just as brave as I need to be.

Or so I think. But every once in a while, I feel the need to check and make sure. Now, given that I have no desire to jump off anything or parachute out of anything, my chances for checking my bravery are limited. Seeing as how, you know, I totally do not get the thrill of the sensation of falling, and for good reason. Falling usually does not equal Good For You.

Bravery is relative, though. I've told you before about the first time I ever saw a woman with really short hair. I mean REALLY short; less than an inch. A buzz is what we're talking about here. My immediate thought was, "How brave!" Remember? And then it turns out she wasn't so much brave as just rich and bored:  a friend of hers told me she just started going to the stylist every week and having him cut it, and pretty soon there was nothing left to cut.

Nevertheless, her hair haunted me. I loved the way it looked, and because for decades I'd had this long, long hair that demanded a lot of attention from me and about which I had these Dreams of Responsibility:  how was I going to keep it clean and brushed in some post-apocalytic world, for instance, it was a terrifying but intriguing idea:  buzzing my head, cutting off all but the barest sheen of hair. What would it be like to be so exposed? Could I do it?

So it's come to this: whenever I need to prove to myself that I haven't become complacent and timid, I 1) cut my hair shorter and 2) get another hole in my ear(s). When my mother was declining and I was overwhelmed with stress and worry, I got holes in my ears. I wanted more, but any more and I'd have to start getting holes through the cartilage, and everyone said, oh, that hurts like crazy! Don't go there! And that just irritated me no end: that I wanted something but was afraid to do it.

Last week I cut my hair. There's not much difference to anyone but me, and the difference is this: I have these ears. When The EGE first met me, he called them Baby Dumbo Ears. Remember? And I fell in love with him anyway? Go figure. It was because I already knew I had Ears--surely there was never a lack of kids pointing this out to me in a self-entertaining and jocular manner, all throughout my not-fitting-in childhood and years of subbing. Omigod, the opportunities for hilarity! Etc.

I've had my hair at a length that seems becoming to me, kind of blending with my ears, but what sticks in my head is my mother and her attitude toward her body, even in the last year of her life. She'd poke her arm and say, "I hate my skin." Or she'd say she hated her feet or her nose or her ears. That made me sad. Also irritated. Like, you want your mother to be the wise old woman, right? Not the one who hasn't managed, in almost 80 years, to make peace with the only body she's ever had.

Was I brave enough to flaunt my ears by cutting my hair and having a hole poked in the part that sticks out the farthest from my head, the part they say hurts the most, through the cartilage? Would I do it? Well, let's find out, shall we? I've come to realize that once an idea gets in there, I'm on a path I'm compelled to follow.

Now, all of this sounds self-obsessed and silly, even to me. I fully realize that haircuts and piercings are hardly life-defining events, and I fully realize that there are people all over the planet doing really brave things and making really life-altering choices without doing the whole navel-gazing thing. But I talk about this because sometimes showing yourself what you're made of is a good thing, and that demonstration doesn't have to be life-altering or life-threatening. You don't have to jump off a building or out of a plane. You don't have to sell everything you own and hitchhike to Alaska. Sometimes what you have to do is just pick something that scares you, something that's in the back of your head--my wishing I had more holes in my ears for jewelry but being afraid of the pain and what I would see in the mirror--and just doing it.

My husband scoffs at this. When I tell him I feel the need to prove to myself that I'm brave enough to do anything I want to do, he doesn't get it:  to him, I'm brave. He doesn't live in my head, where the self-doubts sometimes pop up and go, "Hey, there! Missed us?" You know, where the little kid lives who still thinks everyone else is braver and more confident, tougher and cooler and just generally more together. Every once in a while, I think, I need to show that little kid self that I'm every bit as brave as I need to be.