"Thou shalt have the power of judgment."
I bet they don't tell you that in Religious Studies. Perhaps that's because it's not true. Yet regardless of our God-given or self-created 'right', no one can deny the unruly and overpowering nature of judgmental-ness that comes from human character.
No one's perfect - we've been told it enough times - and because of this; self-consciousness is just another one of our by-products like excess wind and indigestion.
For as long as I can remember I've been rather self-concious. Not 'sexy' enough to strip down into a bikini at 10 years old. Not cool enough to bare all and go clubbing in anything less than a pair of fur boots and jeans at my first under-seventeens 'disco' at Liquids. There was always something that stopped me. But a body I wasn't entirely proud of or hair that wouldn't fasten like the other girls in my year tended to be something I could mask. And so the (extra) timid, subconscious me would only be revealed at selected times when each section of my body was under pressure to do so. All other intervals, around family and playing on the computer, would show my semi-shy but nonetheless, cheery personality.
Yet there was one product of my creation that I - and everyone else, for that matter - HAD to confront. When I looked at myself and smiled to the mirror, sometimes feeling a little special with some mismatched and fluorescent outfit I'd put together, the lure of an elongating and darkening upper lip caught me every time and dragged me under. Once I saw it, the said 'moustache', I couldn't shake my own critical thoughts let alone the criticisms of others. When I knew I'd seen it that day suddenly everyone in the world was looking at me; pointing and jeering. Some were but not everyone.
It only really became a problem when I was in secondary school. I would heard people talking about it. Boys would point it out and even when friends or teachers talked to me they wouldn't talk to me, they'd talk to it. It destroyed me every time. On occasions people would ask why I hadn't had a boyfriend - as many people ask every teenage girl. I would shrug, knowing deep down the potential and, most probable, reason why.
But for all the stick I got, I failed to publicly admit its existence. I don't so much want to show it off as to avoid succumbing to a pressure of judgments which would destroy the image God had clearly wanted to create with me. But by year 12 I was conned into doing it, unable to face a life of being the hairy one.
I had had my hair cut in a salon in Dubai - an annual affair.
"It looks so pretty but ... You've just got this..." The hairdresser remarked drawing her finger seductively over her own lip. The discretion in Dubai is evident.
Let it be a lesson, once you let someone win with their 'suggestion' you give them full power to abuse you as they wish. Reluctantly I consented only to be dragged into the beauty room and be told of how long and thick the hair was. The hairdresser unleashed every thought she'd had of me from when I walked in to how it would effect my future.
I walked out of that salon faster than ever; embarrassed, head hanging but also very very happy. I could now look myself in my reflection and not have to cover my lip to see what I'd look like without a rim of hair over it.
And every time I go for subsequent waxes I come out of the salon with a huge self confidence I shouldn't have. Yes it makes me feel nice and yes "I am now a lady, again!" as the beautician remarked today but why should I need materialism to boost my self-confidence. Why should I be saving money to pay for treatments just to cull thoughts I can't take, stares I don't want and full-frontal abuse?
"Thou shalt be judgemental" - a phrase I'm pretty sure God didn't and would never say, nevertheless still stands.
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