"Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today?"

In light of recent event that happened Monday, I have decided to take another detour in my blog. I promise some day the one entry I've been trying to write for months will actually get done. (Saying that more as a promise to myself)

Earlier this year me and my husband have joined the world of Cosplay! We attended two conventions where we dressed up as a Steam Punk Ariel and Eric from Little Mermaid. We even did a Disneybound when we went to Disneyland. And dressed up for our Primary Party. (My husband is a good sport of being the accessory to my Ariel:) 

 

Last week we attended Masquerade Ball that we waited all year for. We went as fancier versions of them. I found a fancier version of Ariel's "Kiss The Girl" dress that Disney did for one of their doll collections and with the help of my wonderful seamstress friend she helped my vision become a reality! Making it my own, but still very Ariel and nautical.

 

Our costumes were fantastic! I really felt like Princess Ariel! We had a mini photo shoot before the ball with our awesome photographer, Laura Bellamy. That turned out amazing! We had a wonderful time at the ball.

On Monday I decided to post the pictures that Laura took on the Disney Cosplay Group on Facebook. 

http://lauraslifebehindthelens.blogspot.com/2014/10/disney-themed-little-mermaid-session.html

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.747562531958702.1073741861.132391823475779&type=1

I got a marvelous response from people and great compliments on my costume. Everything was very positive, until, I got one post...

One guy from the group decided that he did not like my pictures and decided to tell me so. 

I must say it's been a long time since I've been picked on for my looks. And at age 27 I really wasn't expecting it to happen again. I'm not in Jr. High anymore! I opened my notifications to find this response:

"I'm sorry but a horse-face does NOT make a good cosplay!"  He then later edited his comment to make some sort of mention that I had "horse teeth" and some other derogatory comments about my face and essentially how I shouldn't cosplay because according to him I didn't look right doing it.

I was completely shocked. I really did not know what to think. Or really what to do. 

One thing I don't comprehend is rudeness. I really just can't get my head around it. Not saying I'm perfect or that I've never been rude in my life. But the fact that someone could think something like that, let alone feel it is okay to say something like that to another person, that they don't even know is completely beyond me.

I in fact, do have many oral problems with my face that I am in the process of fixing. Which is what this blog is going to be about. (Spoiler alert) And I have to be very aware, especially in pictures to bring my jaw and my chin forward to look presentable. Some of the first shots, which I'm sure are the ones he was referring to, I wasn't quite comfortable in front of the camera yet, so I hadn't brought them forward enough. My jaw was more receded and exposed more of the gums in my smile. So those pictures are really not the best of me. But I liked them anyway, and I am comfortable enough with myself and my face that I could post maybe what the world would consider not the most "ascetically pleasing" pictures of me.

I told my husband Aaron about it, and my Mom and even Laura my photographer who were completely livid with this guy, and I'm sure would have loved to punch him in the face. But I need to tell you something, 

I was not upset. 

I wasn't hurt by this man's inconsideration. 

A few years ago, something like this would have completely destroyed me. It would have sent me into a deep depression, and into hiding my "shameful face" But this time it didn't. And it doesn't. There were many things I was feeling on the surface. But it almost felt like all the emotions were laid out on a table and I was walking up and down the length of it, looking at what was before me and I got to CHOSE how I was going to feel. And this time probably the first time in my life I chose differently then any other time before.

I wasn't going to allow this guy to take my Peace. I wasn't going to let him destroy, by one thoughtless comment what took me years to build up. That was mine! And I wasn't going to let him touch it.

Who was this man anyway? This complete stranger? This BULLY to tell me that I shouldn't cosplay because of the way I looked?? That in his eyes I was somehow unacceptable. That he had some right to judge that? That I couldn't be a Princess in my own right? That I can't be Princess Ariel? This guy gets to tell me that? 

NOT. A. CHANCE. 

I started to draft a response to him and then I stopped. Because I realized there was nothing I could say to him that that would get him to feel any sort of remorse for what he said to me. Because he was a bully. And he was going to see things the way he wanted to see them whether they were correct or not. He was going to say things the way he wanted to say them whether they had any sort of truth. And I didn't owe him any sort of explanation. I didn't need to tell him my story. Because he doesn't deserve to hear it. And I make no apologies for who I am and what I look like.

As I was realizing and feeling all this and trying to figure out what to do, the comment was removed from the post. I thought maybe someone else who saw it reported him and had it removed. It turns out one of the admins saw it, removed his comment and removed him permanently from the group. She apologized in an email and again on the post that they didn't catch it when it was first posted. 

"This group is a safe place to post, we do not allow anyone to break anyone else down or even try. I love your cosplay I think you look lovely. Stay strong and beautiful!"

That was victory enough for me. One of the Group rules is: "If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all" which I think more and more of our society could use. I received an outpouring of love from people. Currently there is 100 "Likes" and 41 comments on my pictures and that's what I chose to focus on. The good totally outweighed the bad. 

There was a small part of me, for the briefest moment,  maybe a fraction of a second was tempted to take that post down, but I decided against it. Because if I took that down, if I decided to cower in shame, that guy wins. And I won't let anyone have that kind of victory over me anymore.

"Everyday...everyday you're not dead in the ground and you wake up in the mornin', you gonna have to make some decisions. Gotta ask yourself this question; am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools said about me today? You hear me? Am I gonna believe all them bad things them fools say about me today? Alright?"

More Pictures From The Masquerade Ball https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.748711815164003.1073741838.570735572961629&type=1

Set Backs and Perfection

image taken from: http://awakenedvibrations.tumblr.com/post/74010991698/the-fifteen-major-tests-of-the-spiritual-path

So, if you look at when my last entry was it has been quite sometime since I have last written. And like the beginning of most of my journal entries I feel the need to apologize for my lack of consistency and mention how much has happened and how much time has passed and state a resolve to do better to document my life. But I am not sure if I can make such promises here. If you could see all the drafts I have composed and the ideas and direction I have already started you could see I was on the right track. I wasn't always being lazy.

I began this blog ready and willing to go! And then an interesting thing happened. The months of retrospection before starting this blog and the reflection that happened while writing took an interesting turn. As I was beginning my second entry and writing a few entries that would be later on I hit my emotional wall. As I was making connections of events in my life I had some repressed memories come up which brought up many strong emotions which were for lack of a better word paralyzing. I could not sit down and write without having an emotional breakdown. I could not revisit my past without wanting to turn tale and run. With all my work in the emotional release therapies I had done over the past several years I obviously still had some things to work on. And I reached a point where I couldn't. 

So we put it on hold. And then of course life happens. And we get busy and this blog got pushed aside and every time it was thought of was with feelings of guilt, and anxiety. And the thing that I really wanted to do became the thing that I "have to do." The internal pressure I put on myself overwhelmed me and I didn't fell like I could do it. I was not meeting my "deadline" I felt like I was disrupting some cosmic plan. That I lacked the faith to write this, that by not following through on the impressions I received  I was letting down God. I wasn't doing what He needed me to do or helping whomever He needed me to reach.  And I felt I was letting myself down.  Reading other people's work and seeing their talent in writing and being able to put ideas and words in such brilliant ways made me feel extremely inadequate. I felt like I was not strong enough, or smart enough or talented enough or motivated enough to work on something like this.  

I want my blog and my story to be something worth reading. I've had this idea in my head that I need to make everything "perfect" before sending it out into the world. Nicely packaging up all my vulnerability into a nice little bow, laying it out just so before showing it to anyone. But I have come to realize that that is not what this blog is for. That is not what my story is about. For years I have tried to overcome these ideas of "perfection" these black and white, all or nothing attitudes of how my life needs to be. How I need to be. How I need to look. Hiding behind these masks of pretension. I have more often then not, gotten stuck in these narrow views. And many times I have had to learn things the hard way in order to get out of my own way. 

So yes this blog is not always going to be coherent or grammatically correct. I may be redundant and I might repeat myself (catch that? That was a joke.) My story might not always be concise or pretty or dare I say it, "Perfect." But I am embracing the fact that, neither am I. I remember being taught something from one of my Temple Workers in the Baptistry at the Timpanogos Temple when I was in high school, Sister Walker. She told me something her Stake President said during Stake Conference, "The only perfect being who ever lived was not a perfectionist." Well that's good enough for me. This blog is supposed to be about me and my story, and sometimes to get to know someone you need to see all the flaws and the raw edges. And I can promise you plenty!

I am now months behind in my perceived "deadline" but maybe there is a reason for that. One thing I know is that God works with our weaknesses and short comings. And He has plenty of Plan Bs when we fail to do what He asked to do in the first place. That is one of the many very nice things of having someone in your corner who knows the "End from the Beginning" So I'm starting again. To tell you the truth I'm not entirely sure where... I have plenty of drafts and notes and ideas and wonderful edits done by my friend Amber. Now I am just figuring out if that is the direction I need to go. But I'm jumping in with both feet. "Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it." For those of your who have taken and will take the time in the future to read these, thank you for taking this journey with me.