Self Image

The different permutations of Xhyra Graf…

It’s funny how many changes there have been. Each time I think I’ve settled in on something I find some things that need to be changed. It’s been a revelation to me that the virtual Xhyra Graf still had to somehow match some residual self-image.  What I think it’s like to be me…at least be something that made me comfortable.

 This brown leather chick is most comfortable, but still…in some sense she was just too pretty.  Yeah, and what is wrong with that?  You would have to be me.

When I put this shape back on I actually breathed a sigh of relief.

I am most bothered by an avatar that I find too skinny.  I associate being thin with being small and with being weak.  As tiny as my RL hands are I know I can hurt someone just by putting my weight into the punch.  Skinny Xhyra bothered the heck out of me.

 ‘Diamond Girl’

Although, I really like the white hair. 

 Even tough chick in red pants and leather jacket tended to bother me.  [I like the larger than usual head though; reminds me of when I was younger.  Only now is my head kind of proportional.]

 So I went out and about spending my time alone [woohoo!] and doing some thinking.

 I did what I usually do when I need to think. I watched a movie.  It’s like being asleep while awake.  I get the same benefit.  The images and sounds flicker while my real mind goes to work and I come out of it having resolved something. Did I forget to mention that scrawny, white haired Xhyra had a tail?

 So decided to change my hair and went off to find a hairdo. I ended up with expensive prim add-on hair that was tintable to a myriad of colours.  I, of course, chose the almost white setting. 

 Red Chain Mail jacket; can’t see the giant red boots.

It actually felt good to do.  Reminded me of when I used to go get expensive add-on hair and leave the hair dresser feeling like a beauty queen.  I am most myself with long, BIG hair.  Don’t like small proper hair, having my head shaved and blond wasn’t ‘proper’ – I like that small hair.  A co-worker once called me flamboyant.  I didn’t know what she was talking about.  I was just being me…I’m much too subdued now I think.

 Still I had to do some more thinking-visualization.  My sister has said a few times that the virtual was about visualization.  “What do you want to look like?”  I am realizing that in real life I look the way I want to look.  I am fond of saying that if I didn’t think I was beautiful I would have lost weight a long time ago.  I look this way for a purpose and the purpose still exists. Whatever psychological discomfort that happens every once in a while is, as usual, externally driven and not enough to make me want to change, much less make movement toward changing. 

I found I was attached to my skin colour.  Everyone in my family was telling me that she was too dark.  When I changed it to match what they thought or colour matched to photos or my hand the avatar managed to look too light for my comfort.  [And maybe this was some of the problem with this avatar.] 

 She is pretty isn’t she? But despite this I still wasn’t happy and kept changing.  The only thing I hadn’t changed was the light, almost beige colour of my eyes. I began to find my colour problem annoying and was having trouble with why being lighter made me uncomfortable. [In a virtual world!]  Especially since I didn’t know I was black until I came to this country.  My identity was formed before I realized that some people could pee standing up or that your skin colour could make you anything other than ‘Jamaican’ and make people form perceptions of your likes, dislikes and capabilities. 

So I finally took the visualization comment to heart.  What did I want to look like? What look personified who I would want to be?  I thought of Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan.  I found a fix for my shade problem.  I wanted to be like her. priestess that can kick ass if necessary…

 Blue Chain Mail Jacket I made and I bought these boots that are made for when the Zen ends.

Let’s see how long this one lasts.