Fashion trends I will never embrace

Fashion trends come and go, and sometimes they make a come-back. I can't go back in time and embrace old fads, I just can't. I refuse to wear clogs again, I put that behind me ages ago, I will not wear those huge ugly-ass glasses ever again and a shoulder pad will never again be a part of my wardrobe. Call me unfashionable if you want. I wish I cared.

Here's my take on some of the fashion trends:



Pointy-toed shoes. Actually this item is quite clever and versatile, since it can be used both as a shoe and as a sharp weapon. You can look trendy and be able to protect yourself by stabbing a potential attacker with your shoe at the same time.




Large framed glasses that cover half your face. I wore them during my awkward teens, and I don't care to see them again. They only remind me of Michael Myers in Halloween when he dressed up in a sheet and put on glasses belonging to the guy he just killed. I only wished he would have murdered the glasses too, and buried them deep in fashion history where nobody could ever track them down. Alas, somebody did.




I used to wear shoulder pads. I looked like a linebacker for the Chicago Bears.







A clog? Or a Russet potato?






I would have killed for these when I was 10, and they're hot pink too, my favourite colour at the time. Now I think that leg warmers are bad enough, but the colour hot pink is even worse.





Acid washed jeans, high waisted no less. Throw in a short, brown suede jacket, large framed glasses and frizzy hair and what you get is me at 16.





This is perhaps the ugliest fashion trend to ever have been inflicted on human kind. It looks like you've just dropped a huge load in your pants.





Gladiator shoes. These skeleton-like shoes look like oddly shaped bandages wrist supports but for your ankle instead of shoes. Looks like something you'd wear if you were in physio. They're grotesque.



I just can't make myself embrace the fashion trends from my childhood. Whether it's because I associate them with being a child in the 80's or if it's because they're really tacky I don't know, but I suspect it's a mix. I would gladly wear a Jackie Kennedy skirt suit from the 60's or bell bottoms from the 70's, but I won't wear 80's fashion unless it's an 80's theme party. Fortunately, I don't have to wear something I don't want to wear. It is true that I probably look unfashionable, but that's the penalty I will take. To each his/her own. We live in a world of diversity. Although, isn't fashion rather anti-diversity since it encourages us all to dress alike?

I made a decision

It's not a momentous one. It's simply that I have decided not to suggest any activities to any of my friends anymore. Apart from this one person, whose enthusiasm has to be admired, I can't even remember the last time a friend took me up on a proposal to do something. Either all my suggestion are really lame or most of my friends only like to do things when it's initiated by them. They may call me with invitations to do things but when the tables are turned and it's me doing the asking they're either busy or want to do something else. Hence, I have decided that I am not going to ask anyone to do anything again, with the exception of this one enthusiastic friend. Nor am I going to always make myself available to other people's suggestions.
I don't see why I should always get turned down yet always be available whenever someone wants to do something.
On the other hand, I really don't want to become the kind of control freak that mother is. She has such a remarkable need to be in control that she won't do anything unless it was here idea. There's no doubt in my mind that people who are like this are control freaks. Some people can't do anything unless it was thought of by them. These are truly frustrating people, and I do hope I don't develop this trait. So far I'm ok. Although I do have some control issues, I still enjoy doing things suggested by others.
This Easter has been rather lethargic for me. I have felt listless and a bit glum. While other people love spring and get all energized and happy, I experience the opposite end of the spectrum. I get physically tired, listless, and down. I believe the term is seasonal depression. Whether it's due to physical causes or mental ones I have no idea, but there you have it. I'm an autumn person all the way. Autumn doesn't stress me out the way spring does. In the spring I feel so stressed everytime I'm not making the most out of a sunny day. There is the constant pressure to be outside and to be doing something. What if you have nowhere to go? What if sitting in the sunshine bores you out of your skull? What if walking around aimlessly isn't your cup of tea and it depresses you rather than makes you happy?
I think the Swedish poet Kristina Lugn had a similar sentiment, what if you don't live up to the expectations of what spring and summer should be like? It feels as though everybody in the world is doing something but you. Stressful.
I admit that although this trait of mine appears to be inherent, since I have always felt this way, it's partly due to my own expectations and demands. Rather than fill me with peace, sitting on a blanket on a meadow makes me restless, unless there is an animal present. Even a rabbit will do. Barbequing with friends is nice but cliché and it doesn't make the earth move. Going downtown to eat an ice cream and watch people stroll by annoys me almost as much as it does when other people stare at me. I still think people watching is rude and I refuse to do it. People like to call it "people watching" to make it sound more sophisticated but really it's just plain old staring. I don't know exactly what it is I should be doing in order for me to feel as though I'm making the most of my summer, but I suspect that anything less than being right smack by the ocean falls short, or at least a body of water. We used to take daytrips to this wonderful place called Buntzen Lake, where we would sit and eat, drink and, if it was warm enough, go swimming. That was marvellous. I must have been a mermaid or something in an earlier life because the water is the only thing that gives me peace and true enjoyment and makes feel like I'm alive. I remember the feeling I got when we were in Crete two summers ago, and I first got to sit down right in front of the water and the waves were crashing in. Amazing and lovely are the only words to describe it.

Home is where the heart is

Imagine if someone told you that you should pack up your belongings and leave your home and move to another country. What if they asked you "So when are you gonna stop living here and finally move?" What if they dismissed it as your home and referred to it as some kind of adventure or a phase, as though you're escaping reality or something, while for you it's home. This is often what happens whenever someone chooses to live in a country that is not their home country. It's ok to move to a different country for a while, maybe 2 years, even more, but then you get to a point where people start to demand your return. This can be very stressful if you really don't want to move, if where you are living now has become home to you and you couldn't imagine leaving it. You might get accused of being selfish.

To those people who have never felt the inclination to live somewhere other than the country that they were born in, I say good for you, but consider that not everyone is cut from the same cloth, and consider how it would feel if someone told you that you should leave your home, and labeled your life temporary, fake, an adventure etc.
It's a bizarre feeling actually, to be made to feel as though your reality is not really reality. You may have thought it was during these years but it really isn't and it's time for the adventure to stop and for reality to begin, and the only way for that to happen is if you drop everything and move "home". Quit your job, say goodbye to the friends that have you have made there, leave the apartment/house that you have lived in for the past years. But what if "home" isn't really your home anymore? What if in your heart, this other place is your home now? Doesn't matter right, because how could you not want to live in the place you were born? You may travel and try living elsewhere, but in the end you should live and die where you were born. It's that simple.

Well...it's really not that simple. For some of us, living our whole lives where we were born is simply not an option. It may be hard to believe, but we don't all love our hometown, or our home country for that matter. Some of us feel more at home somewhere else. That cliché "Home is where the heart is" may be old and worn out but it's true nonetheless. What's to say that we must live and die in the same spot, or at least in the same country? If we feel happier somewhere else, why can't we live there instead?
Yes, there are family connections, and there is such a thing as roots. Although it's hard to live so far away from family and old friends, it sometimes just can't be helped. And as for the requests made by family and friends that you should move "back home", I can reverse that request and ask them why they can't pick up and move to where I am, since they miss me so much. That's ridiculous and unrealistic of course, they would answer, and they'd be right.
But at the same time it's not unfair to ask me to pack up and leave my home as if the past 5 years or so didn't even matter?

You can be born in one place and grow up there but feel the pull towards a completely different place. It's not so clear-cut for everyone. We don't all love where we come from and feel that we belong there. And it's not so easy when everyone else seems to assume that you should just easily be able to come back home and resume your old life, while everything inside you tells you that you don't want to.
The love one person has for their hometown might just be the same kind of love that you have for this new place. Who knows.

And if something bad should happen to you in your new country, the people back home would immediately go "Oh see, this would never have happened if you lived here! You should come home now!"
What, shit never happens in my home country? If I lived there I would never get mugged, have my heart broken, get into a car accident, have my house robbed?

So, imagine if you were constantly told that you had to leave your hometown that you love and would never want to leave, then try to put yourself in the position of those who feel the opposite - they don't want to drop their new life to come back to a place that they obviously must not have felt completely happy in, or else why would they have left it in the first place?

Buying sanitary pads shouldn't be embarrassing

But for some reason it is. Not for me anymore though. I don't really care who knows what brand of sanitary pads I buy. The fact is that I'm a woman and I haven't gone through menopause and therefore I menstruate, and everyone who's taken biology knows it. It's no big secret which needs to be kept in the closet. When I was a teenager I found buying sanitary pads incredibly embarrassing, and especially putting the pack of sanitary pads on the conveyer belt at the store. I almost tried to sneak it in between the milk carton and the loaf of bread so that the person behind me wouldn't see it. If the cashier was a man it was sheer torture.
The question is, why is it embarrassing? Is it because we don't want any guy to be reminded of the fact that we bleed from our vagina once a month? Everyone above the age of 10 knows about it but yet it's something that's best kept quiet. Is that why they always use blue ink in the sanitary pad commercials? Nobody likes the sight of blood, or even the thought of it. Or more specifically, nobody likes blood that emerges from that particular area. Why is that? Is it because those areas are very private and intimate?
Men don't like buying sanitary pads for us either. It makes them uncomfortable. They can buy condoms without any hesitation, but sanitary pads is a whole different ball game, even though condoms are just as private as sanitary pads. They end up in the same general area. Is it because condoms say "I'm gettin' some!" and sanitary pads say "I'm whipped, my wife/girlfriend/fianceé has me buying her sanitary pads!"?
My father is the expection. When I was growing up he bought sanitary pads for both my mother and I without feeling ashamed. This is probably due to the fact that he doesn't really care what people think of him. My common-law dislikes buying my sanitary pads. He will do it, he just doesn't like it. When I asked him why feels this way he couldn't give me an answer, he just said he simply doesn't like it. It's almost as if men don't want to come anywhere near those products, even when they are still in their package and haven't even been used.

Another thing that's embarrassing but that shouldn't be is when we slip and fall in public. When I slip and fall, my first thought is not about the pain but about whether or not I was witnessed falling. At the moment it's happening it is worse to be seen falling than to get hurt in the process. Why is that? Why do we put our egos ahead of our personal comfort?
It doesn't help that some people actually laugh at other people falling on their ass. This mystifies me, since I fail to see what could possibly be amusing about that. If I was 5 years old I might find it funny, but I think my sense of humour has evolved since then.