Hair Cuts Plus and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Actually, I think it was Great Clips. Yesterday I chopped off my hair. I haven't had shorter hair in years! I freakin love it! The lady was so great and spent the time to do a good job and tell me what she was doing and help me know how to do it myself.
If you can imagine, it looks even better today than when she did it yesterday. AND she (no I) used NO styling products- it feels so good! Usually it takes me a week to try to get it like they did it, give up and do it my own way and then feel a bit disappointed that it's not better. I spent a bit of time this morning- I'm quite awkward with round brushes AND hair dryers- but I really like it. Not sure what Jeff thinks yet though. Perhaps it was too much of a change for him.

In the process of yesterday, I spent some good time with my parents and Khrys. Of course, Dad didn't want to go to the hair place etc, leaving the girls to do our girlie thing. The hair place is right next to Starbuck's so after my hair, we went in for some incredibly good hot chocolate and lots of girl talk. I need a brighter lipstick or something to go with the hair. Any color suggestions?

Khrys keeps telling me and mom that we fit too well the "too good mother" archetype. Mom and I say yes we do and maybe we're push overs and sometimes we feel taken for granted. On the other hand, we don't want to change. We REALLY don't want to be like... we'll just say the opposite of what we are (no naming names). And so we talked...

This morning I woke up thinking... by the end of junior high, I had a pretty good group of friends. If you imagine us sitting at our lunch table, people would come and go but there was a pretty solid core group. We were all best friends, but throughout high school, people would come and go, sometimes not come back, and often we'd be a bit "paired up." Some weeks, Christine would be my best friend because she'd be the one to understand something I was going through. Other weeks, Christine and Heidi would be best friends because they went on a camping trip together and discovered all the fun things they have in common. It wasn't a big deal. No hurt feelings or jealousies or anything like that. It was just the ebb and flow of our friendships.

In a way, my friends helped me out of the shell I'd climbed into when I entered junior high. With my friends, I could at least fake it and be confident and popular or whatever. But, the reality was, throughout high school, I probably retreated more as I learned more about myself. I always saw it as a fear and a lack of confidence. In retrospect I see it as a protection, a valuing of myself and trying to protect that from a mean and vicious world. The point is, I do realize that a lot of what I'm about to say was my own doing.

Today I was thinking how I've always felt like the friend that was the constant. I was the friend that people could come to when they had problems or needed to talk and be listened to or just understood and accepted. But I was not the friend that you'd take out on a double date or to Lagoon or anything "fun" and adventurous. It just wasn't my style I suppose. I was the quiet friend. The one who often got overlooked.
In a group of girls, even if I was actually the prettiest :), boys wouldn't look at me because they wanted the loud, fun, flirty, easy, outgoing girl.
Even within my family, we often tease about who is the favorite. I really think my siblings have a lot more to offer because they have more dynamic personalities. It's their not being good or perfect that makes us value them more and we wouldn't want them to be any other way. I, on the other hand, need to be the constant. I am the good kid. I am the care giver, at least to our parents and the younger ones. I may not be the funnest or most interesting, but I have my place, my role.
One time I heard someone give a "personality test" that categorized you based on a line that showed your energy. One was a dotted flitting line, like a flying bee. This was for people who are a bit flighty but outgoing and busy and idealisitic. Another was a sharp zig zag type line for people who are more in control and proper and goal oriented. One was a flat line for people who are more about other people. They are like the mirrors that reflect the light rather than the candles giving it off. They are the calm. That, I knew, was me.
In college, I learned to be okay with that. I wasn't all those other things and I didn't really want to be. Somewhere along the way I learned what value there was in being the constant, the nice one, the reliable one. People need that friend just as much, if not more?, than any other type of friend. I was okay with myself. In fact I learned to like myself. And I started to trust that someday I would find that one guy who appreciated that in me. And really, I feel accepted and loved in my family so no worries there. I didn't need lots of friends, I just needed the ones I had. I didn't need a lot of dates, I just needed to fall in love. And, in my own way, I need to be the giving one in the family and feel like I serve them some kind of purpose for my own sanity.

All this being said, I still woke up today (perhaps in a bad mood with a stinky dog whining at and licking me and having to go the bathroom for the 3rd time in 6 hours etc) and instead of feeling the good things about being me, felt like I'm just being over looked again. Like I'm back in junior high world where people don't quite yet know to value that constant friend. It's like everyone wants to be in with the cool crowd and be friends with the loud and popular kids, have the hot girlfriend, and there I am... invisible.

I have just over a week (who really knows? Yikes!) until I become a mom. I don't want to be an invisible mom.
When Jeff told me he loved me, I felt finally someone had seen me for who I really am. At some point, I asked how he knew it and he told me all the things about me that I always wanted someone to see. I've felt confident in that for a long time now. But, I worry with all the changes etc, is he going to get bored? Is it really enough or does even he need that someone who is... different than what I have to offer?
And now I have new families. I don't know that they really see or can value my calm, constant nature. I know there are some of them it's hard for me to be around because even though I have absolutely no desire to be like them, I feel inferior because I'm not.

I don't want to be invisible. But how can the breeze not be without becoming a storm? How can the ebb and flow of the tide be anything but constant unless it rages? How can a mirror do anything but reflect back the world around it without breaking?