All the glory that I bear

It's been a couple of weeks now, but I got my hair cut short again! Though it was by no means long, it was too long for me. Short hair is who I am, yo. I know that a lot of people have the idea that caring about your haircut, or your appearance in general, is superficial. And you know what, it might just as well be. I couldn't care less whether people think that or not. But for the sake of writing, I'll try to convey why that shit ain't as vain as you might think it is.

With all the rules, deadlines and restrictions we have to deal with in life it only seems natural, especially if you're a creative individual, to try and be as restrictionless in the parts of life where you have complete control. Like with your appearance. And even that can be restricted by employers, schools and other party poopers. I understand. You can't be a tattooed freakazoid when you have to work with fragile old people who have heart attacks because their jell-o didn't turn up in time. You can't set a "bad" example for young children by turning up to teach a classroom in a band T and bright blue hair. Though I would've fucking loved that. I "understand". I don't agree, that's for sure. Being raised by crazy hippies, I think that everyone should just wear whatever the hell they want. I think that, only if we start to get used to people looking different from ourselves, we can stop judging people who look different from ourselves.

Before I turned eleven, I wanted to have long hair. Like a princess. The epitome of femininity. What all the boys like. After my puberty kicked in I slowly but surely moved towards my more individual taste, opinion and look. I got my nose pierced when I was twelve. I cut my hair short, together with my sister. I remember my youngest brother telling us that short hair wasn't pretty on girls. Especially not on someone with a round face, like mine. That was the first of many times I would think "Well, what if I don't actually WANT to be pretty? Maybe I just want to figure out who I am?". So I cut it. I loved it. It was my very first step into "I'm going to be whatever I want to be" territory. Because of reasons I will probably discuss in a future post, I had some years where there was no room for trying to really find myself or broadening my horizon. A couple of years older, I dyed my hair crazy colors and I'm still doing that. I never regretted a single haircut, dyejob or piercing (I could use a couple 'a more of the latter) because, like taking guitarlessons or picking up a book, it helps you to get to know who you are. Like getting that first tattoo I've been dreaming about. People tell you it'll be ugly. You'll regret it once you're older. But in the end of the day, you're just going to have to decide that for yourself. After having gone through some tough shit this past year, it's time to think about myself again. Finding out who I am. So I cut my hair. I'm thinking about that tattoo. I started reading more again. I finally started drawing after months of being completely inspirationless. Maybe getting some piano lessons. Buying other clothes. Doing things alone. You know what? I totally forgot about the fact that I'm actually kind of awesome. WITH AWESOME HAIR:

In the words of Gaga:

I've had enough, this is my prayer
That I'll die living just as free as my hair

OH and how do you like my new bloglook? I'm still kind of playing around but I really like it so far!

Why'd ya have to go and make things so complicated

Yes, I actually quoted an Avril Lavigne song for a posttitle. Simply because

uhuh,
Life's like this

OKAY I'll stop now. I'm actually more of a sk8erboi fan (or however she spelled/numbered it). But I know, like, 5 songs from her or something. Something with "it's a damn cold night", another song that's all about "HEY YOU I DON'T LIKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND" or something and than there's a song with her running around a certain city avoiding her boyfriend. Something with "all I wanna do is mess around" and "WHAT. THE HELL.". Yes, her lyrics are quite deep. The only thing I really liked about her was her marriage with the kinda cute Sum 41 frontman. Pop-punk teen queen/king, kind of adorable. I'm more of a Sum 41 girl than Avril.

After dedicating more sentences to Avril Lavigne than I actually planned/wanted, I want to start off with thanking you wonderful people. After pouring my heart out on my blog, with my "deepest, darkest secrets" out in the open, I got wonderful support from my readers. And I can't tell you how much it meant/means to me. Even from people I don't know all that well I get beautiful comments/emails about how much they love my blog and how I'm "an inspiring individual", it's just wonderful. While I am going through a hard time in my life and I have moments where I just want to roll up into a ball and softly cry myself to sleep (sniffles), moments when I check my email and see wonderful messages from people I like and respect really give me a kick and make me smile. Apart from the fact that it gives me a good feeling that all kinds of people seem to care enough about me to leave a little "how are you?" message, it's also very nice to notice that when I open myself up to people, people seem to respond with the same care and interest with which I wrote the post. That you "get" what I'm trying to write and convey.


I'm going through all kinds of confusing things. First, the emotions. I have good days and bad days. I have days where I mostly feel okay but I suddenly take a monstrous plunge down and end up bawling for a good 20 minutes. I'm very happy that I'm living with my mum now because she's a great hugger and she knows she can cheer me up a bit with watching movies with me and making healthy veggie soups. So far, I've watched  "500 days of Summer", "Milk", "Transamerica", "Awakenings", "It's a wonderful life", "50 first dates", "The green mile" and I think I'm forgetting one. All wonderful movies and reminding you about how my former boyfriend didn't want to watch movies with me for the past year or so, I kinda forgot how much I love movies. I don't want to forget about myself anymore. I only have one life and I want to live it the way that makes me happy.

I'm not "in love" with him anymore. But when you've spent so much time together, shared so many experiences and memories, the love you feel doesn't just go away. It would be easier if it did but it doesn't. But he has been my best friend and first love, and I don't feel like I want to completely shut him out of my life. I do, however, want to build my life around me from now on, he is not the most important thing in my life anymore.

You probably won't believe that this is actually happening but I have an outfit for you gals. YES, an emo post WITH clothing! One of my newest buys at the sales this summer, the harem pants. I never would've thought I would actually buy one but GODDAMN this thing is comfy, gorgeous and just plain awesome and flattering. I was always a little worried about the low crotch part of the pants because I hate it when the tops of my thighs rub together without any fabric in between but this is just the perfect fit and there's no trouble whatsoever on the crotch part! I've already worn it tons of times and I was seriously considering getting a second one just like this. I didn't but I know that this won't be the last pair of harem pants in my closet.

Also, forgive me but STOP:

HAMMERTIME

also a good shot to see how low the crotch is btw, it really is the perfect fit. The baggyness is perfectly flattering, the print and colours are gorgeous, it's just great pants, man!

Little make-up tip: if you want a bright line of eyeshadow underneath or on your eyelid, get a white eyelinerpencil and draw a line. On top of the white, dab a bright color with an eyeliner brush or an 'angled brush' and you get a great result! It's also cheaper than buying all kinds of colored eyeliner. I'm a cheap Dutchie, yo.

and last, my slightly abstract flower nailart:

You are awesome, thank you again and I'll see you later!

I don't need to fight to prove I'm right

To start off this post about how incredibly shitstained my life has been, I needed a Baba O'riley lyric. Because The Who is always there for me and they'll never break my heart. There are certain things in life that will never fail you, like your favorite song, movie or videogame. Chances are that, by the time I'm forty or so, I'll be a walking billboard for all the things I love. I don't think it'll be long before I get my first tattoo. Something special, just for me. But as I've already told you, this post is going to be about one of the hardest times in my life, not about tattoo's. But the tattoo post is probably gonna happen someday soon, anyways.

As you already know, my father passed away last april. Losing someone is never easy but losing a parent while having had an incredibly complicated, flawed relationship is very difficult. Apart from losing my dad, around the same time I also began to have the feeling that my relationship with my boyfriend of five years was beginning to fail. I even talked about it briefly in a past blogpost . While I felt like he was cheating on me because I've had fear of abandonement issues (who doesn't?) in the end of the day, it was just my brains doing the math. He had been very distant, didn't know how to handle me, seemed like he just saw me as an inconvenience and just made me feel worse all together. It wasn't like that the whole time but that was the feeling that prevailed. With a parent dying and my boyfriend of five years slipping through my fingers, I felt myself slipping away. I started to forget who I am, what I love and, most importantly, that I'm supposed to make myself happy before I (can) make others happy. With having no control over anything in my life anymore, I started thinking about harming myself. I never did it, but I came damn close. I knew my boyfriend was lying to me but I couldn't get him to open up to me so I broke down. Sometimes your capacity of "carrying" all of lifes hardships just overflows and it can be the tiniest thing to drive you over the edge. The scariest thing about it was that I didn't recognize myself anymore. If it seems like you can't even control your own emotions and thoughts anymore... if you don't have yourself, you don't have anything. And it was only after talking to my sister and mother that I got a grip on myself again, reminding myself that I deserve to be happy and I don't deserve to be treated like anything else but a wonderful human being. After deciding to "take a break" in our relationship, my boyfriend took some stuff and slept somewhere else while I tried to pull myself together again, with the help of my sister and mother.

Later I found a loveletter to another girl in my boyfriends backpack. I screamed, cried, cursed (like a good Dutchie in distress does) and cried again. It's probably a good thing my sister had her graduation on that same day so I had something to take my mind off of things. (awkward congratulations to my wonderful sis!).
I broke up with my boyfriend of five years. Now ex boyfriend. BAH, humbug. I always hoped that, if the moment of falling in love with someone else would come, we would be able to talk about it. With respect for the relationship we've had for the past years and all the hard and good times we shared. Not like this. For five years I gave him everything I had, with all my heart. I loved him, with all my heart. Being with someone else was never even on my mind, not for a second. I know it's possible to just go for someone, giving your all for your relationship, because that's what I did. And I deserve someone who does the same for me. One of the worst parts about all this, except for feeling replacable and mediocre, is that I started wondering if I did something wrong. I know perfectly well that I did nothing wrong and there's nothing to feel guilty about or anything. But still, if you get cheated on or someone close to you leaves you, you always have a little monster in the back of your head telling you that you're just not good enough. People are always insecure about a certain thing and my main insecurity is my intellect. With my dad being the first in line to give me the feeling I wasn't good enough with stupid stuff like not being able to understand a particular math problem, I kept that insecurity and it was something my boyfriend always made me feel bad about too. Not being able to name a certain astronaut would result in him giving me the dirtiest look, a big sigh and a speech about how he doesn't understand it's even possible to not know those types of things. I'm done with that shit. I did learn something though: if you don't have anything to hide you might as well show me. I now know why he would freak out if I touched his cellphone. Also, the cold hard truth: I'm right 99.9% of the time. Yes, even when it comes to cheating boyfriends. Let's say it together: BAH, humbug. Being angry at him is a challenge to me because I'm so fucking reasonable. I think "Yeah okay, he did cheat on me and was a complete dickhead for a couple of months but we had so many good times too and there's two parts of the story here and you can't help falling in love with someone else..." blablabla. It's a bit unhealthy because than you start dreaming about your ex boyfriend telling you you're a stupid asshole girlfriend who just HAD to be cheated on. Seriously, last night I dreamed that my ex boyfriend kept shitting on me like that and when I tried to punch him in the face, my fist would turn into jell-o. It's not a fun time. So I woke up feeling like shit. Too bad you can't control your dreams.

SO, that's what's been happening in my life. It's been a, to quote Samantha, shitmotherfuckerfuckshit situation. But I want to thank my wonderful family and my blogging penpal Jules aka Giulia for being there for me. It's nice to have people come through when you hid a bump in the road (or maybe a freaking mountain), even if it means that some people don't. I'll end my post with some charming pictures of myself, one resembling the "The Cat Returns" poster! Now I just need to find my own Baron Humbert Von Gikkingen.

And a happy picture to end this sad post, for no one I've ever seen was this excited to go down a slide:

See you laters, alligators.

Comfy grunge and death

Well, with the promise of more blogposts in spring break and with spring break now officially over I've been a terrible blogger. I do have a damn good excuse, though.

My dad passed away, barely a week ago. It's very strange to say (or type) those exact words because the concept of death is so incredibly abstract and strange. I'm not going to bore you with details because they are terrible and laughable, ridiculous and disgusting, all at the same time. I feel incredibly confused and my brain is pretty messed up, especially since my relationship with my dad has been complicated for a while now. I might do a bigger post one day about the strange relationship I had with my dad. Maybe I can work through some emotional crap that way and maybe I can help some other people who are in tough situations with their parents too. Lord knows that stuff happens A LOT. While this spring break is probably the worst spring break one can ever have I did enjoy all the time I got to spend with my family, including my fathers sisters. I always loved stories about my parents when they were young and hearing stories about who my dad used to be reminded me of the good memories I have of him and the good parts of his personality. Since my dad had his first stroke his personality changed quite a bit. I was a little afraid that the only thing I could remember my dad by would be the shitty couple of years we had more recently but thanks to my older siblings, mother and aunts I'm slowly starting to remember again who that father was and how much I'm going to miss him. In the end I got to spend some beautiful last moments with him. including a moment where he told me he wished he would've taken better care of me, how beautiful I am and how much he was going to miss me. If there's any moment to be honest it's the moment you know you're going to be gone soon, right?

I won't be going to school this week because my brain is fucked up with all the emotions and I'm terribly unstable. One moment I feel like everything's okay and I can just get up tomorrow at five thirty in the morning and go to school. Five minutes later, however, I'm crying like a baby and feeling like I could punch someone so hard their ancestors would feel it (mulan reference). And again five minutes later I fall asleep on the couch. Emotions are exhausting, yo. I haven't lost my appetite and I'm able to sleep just fine so I guess that's something.

Random topic switch: I just wanted a comfy outfit to pair with my appetite for slightly gothic make up so I put on this dress and a comfy, thick cardigan I wear all the time. Hope you like it. If you have some interesting stories about your parents or a difficult relationship with them, don't hesitate to share it with me if you want to. And while I still have a couple of outfits to post with my long hair I'll warn you now: I have a banging new, short 'do. But for now: colorful pincurls! I will miss pincurling.

The girl with the animal hat

I'm going to introduce you lovely people to my little beastie: the wolf hat.

I got it from my sister last year for my birthday/christmas and I have been loving it deeply ever since. Not only because it's adorable and so strange I can wear it with everything and nothing but also because you get a lot of reactions from random people in the streets when you wear something like this. Some see it and think 'OMG so adorable!' and come up to me to say that I'm wearing the most awesome hat ever to be seen in the universe and some look at me like I'm mentally deranged. I once had this lovely little experience, I went to get something at our local supermarket and I came across a cranky cashier. It was around the holidays last year and he was helping customers with a kind of farmer with a toothache (lovely dutch expression :-D) smile but looked like he was cursing under his breath. Once it was my turn to pay for my groceries he looked at me, looked at my hat and suddenly a big smile appeared on his face. He laughed and said 'cool hat! lovely holidays to you!'. I don't ever care if he was laughing at me or not, it's nice to bring a smile to people's faces sometimes. And young kids are CRAZY about this hat. Once they see my hat I feel like a celebrity with everyone pointing and smiling at me.

I find it so strange that something so simple like a hat with a snout can cause such big reactions relative to the freaking hat. It always makes me think of the princess boy, just a boy who likes to wear dresses and princessy clothing. While to some people it's just kid in a dress, a lot of people go beserk saying that it's unnatural and of course, that his parents are "turning him gay" or what not. That it's "inappropriate" and that he should just "act normal" because he'll get bullied in school anyways. And I get so fucking pissed when I hear that statement. Change your behaviour because other people are too ignorant to deal with something that might be a little out of the ordinary. That's basically saying that, if the kid just wants to be who he/she is, there's gonna be bullying and it's his/her own fault! No, don't talk to the bullies, don't do anything in favor of acceptance. Be normal, that's crazy enough. BAH HUMBUG, to stay in the holiday spirit. I solemnly swear, right now, that if I ever have kids, they will freaking wear whatever the hell they want. I will argue and if necessary, fight for their right to be who they are. Shouldn't we all? Dresses, jeans, as long as it's a little season/age appropriate, go crazy kids! Boys in high heels, girls in combat boots, what's the harm in that? Apart from the feet of the boys, no harm done. And I sincerely hope that, if we want to prevent people being bullied, we talk about bullying, ignorance, insecurities, ... in stead of giving kids, who might look, think, talk a little different, a lesson on how to not BE bullied. We have to start early with this kind of thing, before you know it they grow up to be an adult who thinks that gay couples shouldn't be able to adopt kids because the kid will get bullied.

Now, the infamous animal hat:

It's also delightfully warm, by the way! OH and I hope you guys had a lovely christmas! :-)