Where Was the Beauty Campaign With a Ballerina With Feeding Tubes

No matter how many ‘tags I create for myself, there is always another person out there saying that stories “sell better” with just one thread

Where was the beauty campaign with a ballerina with feeding tubes, like me?

Where was the commercial with the woman sharing her love of a lipstick in American Sign Language, also like me?

But it’s not about me.

There are other “me’s” in the world…  it’s the “me” that at any age still didn’t (and doesn’t) fully believe she fits back in her own fashion and beauty journalism field unless she’s pretending to be hearing and healthy and young and perfect.

I care about telling stories through my preferred body language and emotion. Using dance or ASL as my method to make-into making over what it means to makeover beauty. Showing a body that just fused its pelvis and spine so fully, yet refusing to fuse my roots into the ground in a way that doesn’t reach for branches higher in some small way. For the little human inside who still believes, but mostly for little human somewhere far away, eyes wide open in wait.

We need for kids to see a disabled person who is more than just “one type of” as they grow…. And we need it for the little humans (no binary needed) inside ourselves who still don’t fully believe we can be beautiful.

And, perhaps most of all (for me)… I need it for the (formally) little human next to me who I grew inside my body that doesn’t fit by one hashtag either. And shouldn’t have to. And wont (I demand it. Please help me parent and demand it by dropping some words as well so all of us may read and listen to our own best advice).

The world tells me to define myself in one note. But I’m not just #deaf, not just #sick, not just #ballerina, not just #director, not just #novelist… But no matter how many ‘tags I create for myself, there is always another person out there saying that stories “sell better” with just one thread, or interrupting a business question of mine in a meeting until I find myself saying I’M sorry, or just talking through the entire damn meeting while we sit there bobbing our heads like puppets on a string.

This broken, shattered body created this strong, powerful woman leading the way… And for every new term she invents for herself in the world, she surely will face the same. There are other “me’s” in the world… But what about her? What will time and trend and new treatments eventually say about her form of beauty? About the parts of herself that she truly finds beautiful, not the notes given by someone off to the side.

How will time treat her?

We need for kids to see a disabled person who is more than just “one type of”, yes….

But we can wear the makeup, and don the hats, and do the things in all the many mattes we prefer… and STILL be worthy of finishing our damn sentence.

Sort-of mid-week THANK YOU to those helping me continue writing! You are my hope, and my light, and my hopefully-not-lackadaisical lexicon! THANK YOU

The work here is reader-supported. To receive new words almost every weekday (!), videos and art, kindly considering supporting, even though I know that funds and free-time is precious and should never be taken for granted

Thank you for keeping words in the world! If you can’t give, get some for free every weekday by leaving your email at the link above, and kindly consider suggesting this space to a friend?