People's lips have pronounced words in which force themselves in between the cracks of my brain. The darkness of my mascara invaded the paleness of my lifeless skin. I lay down reaching the coldness of the ground. Forcing myself to lay a gentle pillow in the noise of my unwanted mouth. My restless eyes glued so delicately, couldn't accept the skin in which invaded every centimeter of my body, I'm not going to let society win, what do they expect from me? I was never enough. It was time to give up. The reason was that I was done, I was truly exhausted.
In the middle of the rushing lights, I stood in Manhattan, New York. I grabbed a huge board and with the blackness of the ink, I wrote " Cut a piece of my hair. To prove beauty lives on the inside, not on the outside". Carefully, I took a pair of scissors and placed them in my hand. I place a dark blindfold and wrapped it against my eyes. Leaving me with no sight, a huge sign and a pair of scissors on my hand in the middle of a restless city, proving a point to let myself be free.The warmth of my soft hands reached upon a screen in which would lead to a destroyed world made to hate myself.
Social media was a door to expectations. All those photos of millions of empty woman hiding their imperfections beneath a thick layer of cosmetics. Made me want to crawl under their skin and hate what was portrayed by a mirror. Every time I close my eyes I drowned into the words that work towards against my respiration not letting me breathe. But I could let myself be free. And over time, I have come to realize that if I didn't save myself no one else would. So, I released myself and deleted Instagram and all that related to this world. And decided to let people cut a piece of what supposedly describe me as a woman.
Minutes seem to draft by like hours, standing in between a huge crowd. I felt the emptiness of the scissors in my hand. And that's when I knew a piece of my bleached hair was gone. And then, another person had come and cut another piece. I was being released with the help of others, and after all, maybe there was hope to being happy. Maybe, I didn’t have to satisfy society’s appetite. I was born to be real, not perfect.
My dear mother always taught me that girls weren’t supposed to be mad or strong they were supposed to act like a “lady” would. They were supposed to say “thank you” and things like that. A lady was delicate as a rose without thorns. All I’ve known from myself came from the pouring lies of my mother. But I was thirty-one, and I was too old to stick to her requirements of what a woman was. Was being a female who desire to express her emotions bad? Was admitting your own emotions, not ladylike? As a child, books were introduced with characters such as Medusa and witches framed as something unnatural because they were angry woman bent on harming. But when Superman got mad, he became a hero.
Lost in my entertaining thoughts. I heard behind my ear, a touch of a whisper. " You are inspiring. Thank you" I heard a woman's voice. I felt warm in a way that I was giving a message not only for me but for them. I couldn't feel the length of my hair fall on my shoulders. I felt the warmth of my embarrassment rushed through my veins. I had been left with no hair. I unwrapped my eyes from the black blindfold to come to see a crowd applauding while at the same time a sight of my hair left in the middle of a toxic city contaminating each other. The rush of my tears fell against a smile, I could finally be me. I work my hands against my head feeling the skin attached to my brain.
I felt a young girl’s arms wrapped tightly around me. In the water of her eyes she deeply looked into mine “ thank you” she said as she admired me. I didn’t need to look like the disguised woman shown on a phone because I was already a model for others. All of a sudden I was the center of attention. I lost count of how many people were pointing phones on me. I’ve given the world a piece of me and this gave me the key to my own freedom from the cage built on people opinions. I lost myself for a long time she was almost a stranger when I encounter her again. But I was now truly okay. I could finally fall safely against my own mistreated skin.I could start getting used to the idea leaving in beneath myself. I could accept myself as me. Not wanting to be anyone else.
The next day, I woke up with satisfaction in me. I was completely hairless and had a certain confidence in me. Many people had several definitions of what a woman was. Mine was that being a woman meant to believe in yourself to learn the meaning of “self-love”. I went to the magazine I worked in and found out from the few friends I had that many people had recorded me in the action of others cutting my hair and the message portrayed on the sign. This videos had become viral. I had thousands of likes, I was the middle of attention. I was the internet’s sensation. I’d love the idea of what I had created but did I love myself even more? All I could fit in my head was that I didn’t want to fall in love with the idea of attention. Would I be sunk in again?