february
A collection of reflections I had this month. On love, basics, school, girlhood and more.
In February, we’re giving into clichés. The month of love. Pink and red, hearts, roses, kisses, chocolate. It’s so corny but instead of pretending we’re above clichés, we will embody the stereotypes that follow us. This is an essay about embracing who we are within society, about owning our labels but being authentic to ourselves in the process.
On February 1st, I cut my hair. In some cultures, hair carries energy, the longer the more powerful, spiritual and wise you are. In 21st century North America, you’ll hear of women chopping off their hair after a break up, a sort of clean slate, a new start, a safe outlet for their delusions. I want to think I’m neither and both at once, ridding myself of the past to welcome new energy, starting fresh, but in a grounded way. Anyway, I got what I wanted and not, my hairdresser cut off much more than I asked for, clearing me of what she judged didn’t serve me anymore. I was happy for a minute, feeling like the prettiest girl in town, then I was sad, grieving a change I didn’t welcome, a slight identity loss, a grain of feminity cut within a second. A few days later, I forgot all about the haircut, a common pattern I find myself in. It’s led to new hairstyle exploration, a creative outlet I haven’t explored much before. On March first, I look back at this haircut as the first of many changes, new experiences and endeavours. It was such an innocent start, a safe, comforting, easy push outside my comfort zone, and it let me feel like I could do more, and I did. Good things and bad, it’s all perspective.
Feb 3rd
Today, I got lucky. I felt it, the shift. I got compliments (altough not once about my hair), the universe worked in my favor in surprising ways, more than I’d consider a fortunate accident, I showed up right on time always, a boy on the bus asked for my number, things happened at the perfect moment. It all felt supernatural after a few instance of ideal timing, I blamed it on luck. I was lucky. I don’t claim any credit for it, but I do know that in January the lucky girl syndrome was on my mind, I’d often recite affirmations, when things went wrong to ask for imporvement, and when they went so right I wanted to recognize and reaffirm my luck. We claim our lucks and hope that the universe keeps aligning in our favour always, keeping some of the energy alive to last us through the month. And today, I am lucky, and grateful, and putting out the same that I recieve and more.
February is unsexy. -40 wind chills, Zoom calls, cold emails, freezing rain, grey, boots, layers, interviews, midterm season, cracked knucles, being single, reading week, rejections, ice cold fingers.
I burned my palate on a greasy pizza slice I got at the engineering building for 7$. I sat there eating it, cheese and sauce sliding around my palms, trying to focus on my intro to psychology readings, hearing conversations through my earphones about ‘circuits’ and ‘the physics prof’ and more that left my brain as soon as it processed it, words so foreign to my vocabulary I didn’t care to remember them. I ran into a friend from high school and we spoke for a minute, leaving because we had nothing to say to each other, and the nostalgic delight of seeing friends from before has worn off. We both had class anyway, so we parted ways, him belonging in the engineering building, me standing out. I feel like a curiosity there every thursday, a girl, in colours, looking less smart and less sleep deprived as everybody there. I envy them sometimes, being able to study while eating instead of chatting up the stanger across from them, being so grounded in physical reality, understanding numbers and studying to ‘make things’ as a career. And then I laugh, because I write and read and draw and wear a big pink scarf and have Glossier crush on my lips and make my whole personnality revolve around things that seem so trivial there. I laugh because it’s absurd how out of place I feel, and how I always run into people I know and say ‘oh, I have health politics here, I know, it’s so wierd!!’, and I get lost in the tunnels that should lead me to my next class so I run through them, looking more astray than ever. I’ve had men in stem try and explain concepts so distant from me, and all I understood was the importance of knowing rethoric and simple language. I laughed at them for complicating things, and at myself for being ‘dumb’, they’re always so akward, fascinated by my femininity and disappointed that I can live without knowing laws of motion. I tell them feelings matter, human life matters, there’s things we can’t explain, and they stare, not grasping that the world can feel like it’s revolving around someone you love, and formulas won’t explain natural chemistry.
Please, can I search for myself in your lab? I love your work!
I get really caught up in imposter syndrome lately. Feeling like a fraud, glamorizing my resume, fighting for unpaid positions in some researcher’s lab. I search their profiles and see a vast collection of identifiers I can barely comprehend. bsc, md, dphil, pdf, mhsc, abcde. For years of study they got mysterious acronyms, a dr. in front of their last name, and undergrads in their inbox, feeding them compliments only to be rejected. I’ve been applying to jobs the traditional way too, spending hours for my less than perfect cv to be dismissed by an algorithm. ‘If they met me, they would hire me on the spot’, I think, or hope, that my charms would seduce an employer into offering me a job. So desperate to break into the workforce, a student rejects her passions and desires for the grind mindset she’s been fed after spending most of her life endocrinated by a capitalist education system. ‘I’m self aware tho, I know it’s exploitation’ she says, but keeps on searching, for a title, loosing herself in the process.
The feminine urge to write ‘lol’ after everything.
The feminine urge to add exclamation marks to her emails.
Thank you so much for getting back to me!
I am extremely grateful and honoured for the opportunity!
Your work is truly inspiring!
On another note, on multiple instance in February, I’ve found myself truly in love with what I do, with the struggle and the headaches. That’s why I picked this major after all, a constant desire to learn, and search, and challenge myself academically. Sometimes for the grade, but always for a conversation I’ll have someday, for the late night reflections in my bedroom, for the exctasy of finding an article explaining exactly what’s been troubling me lately. It’s for the contrast I feel when ten minutes after my lab I’m at the gallery. It’s when I change from my volunteer vest at the hospital into a mini skirt. When I go from reading about cell receptors to Anne Sexton. An obsession with duality translated into my own academic career and professional aspirations. I am both and I’m obsessed.
Capturing teenage girlhood
In a world where social context, culture, trends change as fast as the internet does, capturing the essence of a period in our lives is especially important. We all know that teenage girls run the world, bringing to the spotlight whatever they know is cool and modern, we’ve seen it with tiktok, music, clothing, everything else. We also know that whatever teenage girls like is seen as less than, childish, immature, ‘girly’ as an insult. I am not here to discuss what countless intellectuals and marketing experts already have. I’m here I flaunt my membership to the teenage girl club. Although it’s expiring, I’m grasping onto the last strings I have left of complete and acceptable narcissism, a seductive innocence, a deeper understanding of what’s cool, a say in what beauty is, a charm men want, and a mind that could kill. In the midst of my pandemic teenage years I have written how much I concern myself with the thoughts on my mind, in the purity culture we grew up in, the materialistic media driven fame culture that follows us online, having countless good or bad role models to look up to and brain plasticity that will eat up whatever I feed it, I was aware and afraid of my delusions. Lorde, our queen, said: “The minds we had, the minds we had/ It's not enough to feel the lack/ I want 'em back, I want 'em back, I want 'em” Praise her. She put the words I was lacking into a banger, expressing the angst of knowing you’re considered at your physical peak, that you’re as hot and desirable as you’ll ever be, but not being allowed to express it or you’re considered badly behaved. In truth, I’m scared I will lose myself in the process of growing up, that this natural high will wear off, that the magic of the world seen through my teenage eyes will fade and I will become the shell of the girl I once was. I’m scared because it’s inevitable, it seems, women who have been stripped of their independance and power through mariages tell me the best thing in life is a husband, blind to their subordinate condition. I know it’s waiting for me, maybe it will be hormones or everyone around me growing up. I’m not picturing myself ever being a wife, a mother, a sedentary adult, but everyone who was once wild and free as I am is dull and close mided, tamed by expectations they fell under. I’m scared I will lose this mind that I have, that creative projects will not come up as I brush my teeth, that being braless in a tank top, braids and books, boys and sharing snacks on the bus will no longer fit in and be acceptable. I will lose this mystique, this beauty and youth I’ve been granted. I am not immortal. I will grow up. I have to brace myself. Looking back at this I can assure you I’m rarely this delusional and narcissistic, I promise.
March First
I will leave you with this poem from Mary Oliver, a classic inspiration, simple and beautiful. This is a preview of what you’ll likely hear from me in March, spring, summer coming, new begginings, making plans, recounting my trip, being bold and feeling fresh. This is only what I expect from the new month, a manifestation of sorts, claimed here on the first of the month.
Thank you for being here, thank you for reading. Send me your thoughts always in the comments, I love to hear what you think and what’s in Your Diary.
With love,
Dasha
The Sun Have you ever seen anything in your life more wonderful than the way the sun, every evening, relaxed and easy, floats toward the horizon and into the clouds or the hills, or the rumpled sea, and is gone– and how it slides again out of the blackness, every morning, on the other side of the world, like a red flower streaming upward on its heavenly oils, say, on a morning in early summer, at its perfect imperial distance– and have you ever felt for anything such wild love– do you think there is anywhere, in any language, a word billowing enough for the pleasure that fills you, as the sun reaches out, as it warms you as you stand there, empty-handed– or have you too turned from this world– or have you too gone crazy for power, for things? – Mary Oliver
