That's the goddess in me

 Dear future hubster,

there is this cliché of women changing their hair right after a breakup, and I think often it can be real and true, when they need to do something bold, to make a drastic visual change that somehow represents the turmoil inside, and sometimes maybe they need to do things they have been putting off, for fear or experience of being seen as too loud, too different, too much. 

Other times though, there are no drastic changes visible. I find that every time somebody walks out of my life - somebody I very much wanted to stay in my life - , and I go around in circles in my head about what went wrong and how did we end up like this, and I dissect my behaviour, I end up doing an exercise of "who am I". And not in a self-deprecating, low self-esteem, putting myself down way. 

I usually start with the things (I thought) the person liked about me, the beautiful things they said about how I show up and what I do and how I move around in the world and how that made them happy. 

Then I consider all the things I (re)discovered about myself thanks to them. The beauty I didn't see in myself, the softness I'd forgotten about, the joy I feel when I make somebody laugh. The way I can answer a question before it's even asked, and how I hold out a hand right before they would fall. 

And then I slowly start remembering all the things I like about me. All the things I do that I think are cool or quirky or sweet or weird or boring or funny, and that make me unmistakeably me. How I drink my coffee - and how much of it -, and how I make it for others. How I have opinions on a whole lot of things, and how I can feel my eyes go twinkly when somebody explains me something they are passionate about. How I stick to habits to the point of inconvenience because something needs to keep my life together. How I'm rigid about things like when a Christmas tree should be put up (not a minute before the 24th, obviously), or what goes into a goulash (no rice, for all that is sacred), but can be very chill about other, arguably more important things. How I'm a giver until the bitter end, how I feed others like I'm already a grandma, how I'm the suspicious auntie to many, with a peculiar taste for socks and tights, how I adore being in the company of children because their perspective is eye-opening, and how being worthy of their trust is one of the greatest honours of my life. How I can be clever and silly in the same moment, laugh through my tears, adventure through the dark ditches of heartache, carry somebody's grief alongside mine. Admire people for who they are, even when I could never imagine being like them. Loving people when they can't love me back, when they can't love at all, when they can't even believe that they can be loved. How I sometimes manage to believe that I'm good enough, and at the same time want to get better at something all the time. 

So yeah, there isn't always a new haircut to indicate that hearts have been broken and now they need to be put back together, piece by piece, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen, that it's not happening. 

Afterall, my baseline is having half of my head shaved already 🤷