Easter Sunday

Stayed home as usual today. Besides the fact that I am still recuperating, I feel so fat and unkempt and am pretty much in hiding. It seems strange that less than a year ago I had a job that depended mainly on my physical appearance. You see, my mother was raised in a village in Greece, poverty-stricken and the only way out was to be born into a family that owned acres and acres of cotton fields or to be a winner of the genetic lottery and be able to snag a wealthy man through your beauty.

Before she began placing such a huge emphasis on my looks, I concentrated on school a lot but nothing compared to the rush I got from my mother finally paying attention to me (as everyone else did for that matter) at the age of fourteen. That kind of attention can screw anyone up because even though I played it up and made the most of my looks, down deep inside I felt like the biggest phoney ever. But oh to be told how pretty you are and to have people stare at you or sneer at you, depending on the sex of the person. This both gave me a sort of balance and sanity but destroyed my self-worth at the same time. And man, did I ever overstay my welcome (Vaseline has done wonders for my skin!) but I didn't know how to acquire personal power in any other way.

This is the first time in my 42 years that I am not concentrating on my appearance but that's not to say that I am not looking forward to the little make-over I have planned for myself later on this month, complete with lightening my hair and cleaning my teeth professionally. But alas, I am giving the inner me the chance to show itself, and hopefully to shine brighter than ever by using my intelligence. I feel that I have so much to give to myself and others and what a pity that I allowed myself to be objectified in such horrible ways, as subtle as they may have been there are so many chips in my soul as a result. I am a human being dammit, don't I fucking deserve to be respected and cherished? No wonder I ended up on a stage holding on to a pole for dear life, too drunk and high to realize the severity of the damage this could have caused me in the long run. I deserve happiness, I deserve to live my life with dignity. I deserve to hold my son in my arms once again and revel in the true joy of it. No one will ever be able to put me down again and be able to make me question my self-worth ever, ever again. I can see right through them now and I will never trust like a child ever again.