I always loved glitter. This is nothing new, however in late December of 2017, I went balls deep into the stuff. You see, glitter had always made me happy. A little dose of dopamine straight to my brain. But I never wore it with any regularity until then.
Why? I was depressed and suffering from crippling anxiety that a got as a pre-order bonus with my very severe ADHD. I’ll talk more about these later, but the big thing is that this stuff is EXHAUSTED. Not only did it take time to put on, I had been working at a very hyper conservative dress coded place that would send you home for too much eye shadow for just shy of ten years total.
It wasn’t until I was free of that place did I go back to school and picked up work at a nearby big box store. Said big box store is one of the best things that have happened to me professionally. This will be another entire blog post, but the important part for today is that I could wear my hair, nails, make up, jewelry however I wanted so long as I wore the right pants and shirt. Slowly, in a positive work environment, I was starting to heal wounds that I never even knew a had.
This brings us to December 27th, 2017. The one year anniversary of the passing of the Great Space Mom herself, the Goddess of mental health: Carrie Fisher.
Now if you aren’t aware of the Glitter-For-Carrie movement, please go take a moment and read. [ https://www.themarysue.com/glitter-for-carrie/ ] The long and short is that she helped herself on dark days by wearing glitter. And that anyone who seemed to be having a bad day, she’d whip out a pack of it and glitter them up. “You’ve been blessed by Carrie” people would call it at DragonCon (which I’m a long time Vet of).
So on the anniversary of her passing, I coated myself with glitter. And as I looked into the mirror I realized how genius it was. I INSTANTLY got a jolt of dopamine in my brain. This stuff had always made me smile, how could I let it fall out of my life? Well now it would fall off of my body in a puff of fae like clouds. I also stopped caring if people were turned off by it. So what? It made me happy. I made sure I was getting bio-degradable so not even the little sea creatures would be hurt by it. I sure as shit wasn’t going to worry about if a man would get wounded by a fleck of fukkin plastic. (Note: Reuel/Fiance is a saint about and just accepts it as a part of me). I even weaponize it on Black Friday!
You see, I am rather petite. And people are REALLY bad about walking INTO me. Esp guys for some reason. There’s a whole study on how society trains women to sidestep men, and men to ‘hold their ground’ when paths will collide, it’s actually super cool to read if you’re into that kinda thing. But point being, I get rammed into a lot. I don’t see well in the first place, and Im bad about tunnel vision. Not only that, some people just won’t even meet me half walk and make a half step. So when I’m body checked?
PUFF!
Anyways, it’s become a thing at work when co-workers hug me and I’ll be around the corner and someone tells them: “Ah! I see you that you gave Laura a hug today!” I also tend to be the go to person for friends and co-workers who have questions about mental health and social issues. So in my own little way, I carry just a small peace of Space Mom’s torch. Glitter is just the really overt one that brings smiles.
It’s a part of me now; my hair, my nails, my make up, my clothes. So not only did I take the step to get on an SSRI after many years of hesitation, I let myself just be me.
Crafting herpes and all.
P.S: Biodegradable glitter is important!!
Glitter and Games 