when do i ever get to choose for myself

the quiet rebellion of living only for yourself

In high school, I dyed my naturally brunette hair. First golden highlights like the sun, then quickly covered those light spots with pink, then blue, then purple.

Then, I was lectured in the dean’s office, where he cited the school rules to me: Hair color may not deviate from the naturally occurring spectrum.

Fine. Red is certainly a naturally occurring hair color. So the next day I showed up to school with, albeit dark, but unmistakably red hair.

I used to consider this rebellion a condition of the angst and mental health woes that plagued my teenage years. I once made a deal with my dad that if I hit Xlbs in my weight goal (just eating disorder recovery things) that he had to take me to get an industrial piercing because I was 16 and still needed a guardian’s approval.

Well I don’t back down from a bet, hit the weight goal, and there we were: chronic alcoholic father and underweight 5’ 3” prep-school daughter rolling up to the downtown tattoo parlor unintimidated by the burly sleeved biker behind the counter or the three drug addicts we passed on the street from where we parked my dads Lexus with thoughts and prayers that it would be there when we got back. (I won’t share what city I grew up in, but let’s just say one of the rougher in the US).

We walk in, they eye me up and down when I boldly ask for them to jam a 3-in needle into two spots of my ear cartilage. They tell me on a pain scale it’s one of the worst, am I sure?

Eh. I have a high tolerance for pain.

They look at my dad, who just shrugs, and we’re brought to the piercing table where I lie down for them to prep me.

My dad turns green.

He squeezes my hand more painfully than the needle going through my ear, and I make a mental note to never let him live this down because he is the one who has to sit down after it’s all said and done.

My mom hates it. She hates a lot of things quietly, though. She hates that I don’t own a shirt that covers my belly button. She hates that my hair colors have permanently stained the shower. She hates that I painted my room lime green and eventually talks me into painting over it… grey.

My mom has had the same clothes, the same hair, the same unchanging, unaging aura for my whole life. Our homes were carefully devoid of personality. She wouldn’t let me have friends over for fear of them judging that we were not living in the usual McMansions occupied by my school peers. She’d never wear a pattern or plant anything too colorful in the front yard.

She would quietly turn up her nose if I wore anything she deemed too out there.

The day I pierced my nose, she kicked me out to my dad's house, and we didn’t talk for a few weeks. But ironically, she sends me a text in the middle of this estrangement of the tattoo she got on her leg to commemorate her soul dog passing away.

Undoubtedly, the source of my own crippling social anxiety in this era of my life, my mom enables me to stay home from school day after day because the idea of being perceived by others makes me feel physically ill. She gets it. She created it.

When I was in college, it was one of our favorite pastimes to shop together when I was on break. We would plan our trip to the mall, and she’d have a list of what she was looking for, and I’d have a few gaps in mind for my own wardrobe, hoping she would help me fill.

We’d go to all of our favorite stores, but without really ever noticing it at the time, my mom would buy the same shirt 10 times over. Muted colors, no patterns, I could pick her “style”, safe, a little drab out anywhere we went. And this is how I learned to shop, too.

I’d pick out things, and that subtle disapproving sneer on her face if she hated what I upheld to her meant a quick reshelving of the item and a quick turn of my eye towards anything more suitable that would be sure to win her approval.

Not to mention, I went to school in a cold, grey place that wore on my spirit and enforced a strict dress code of unflattering and oversized layers.

In my freshman year of college, though, my roommate told me I was good at curating hygge. Perhaps one of my all-time favorite compliments from someone whom I could write whole chapters on for her complicated and slightly insane ways.

Hygge (pronounced "hoo-gah"): a quality of cozy, comfortable conviviality that fosters contentment or well-being. It embodies simple pleasures—like candlelight, warmth, and togetherness—often described as a "restorative practice" or a "hug" in the form of a lifestyle.

Ever the rebeller, I hung contraband string lights around our room, a 2016 boho tapestry on the ceiling, taped fun patterns into the backside of our door, burned my stash of candles every night, and we quickly became the room that other’s coveted for an invite to.

My roommate supplied the humans, and I supplied the vibes, but they had to be just right if I was to warrant my own spot in this crowd. I had to host with just the right playlist, mix just the right drinks, wear just the right thing, and only then could I let myself relax into the cozy corner of my bed and watch the party unfold before me. Only when I was sufficiently intoxicated myself could I participate without consequence.

This got worse as my relationship with R went through the tribulations of insecurity mixed with long distance. R grew up in an even more extreme environment where conformity was a means of survival and rebellion was not even an option to be flirted with. Ever the repressed and made-to-be straight edge, R was not a fan of how I spent my evenings and skipped class. He didn’t like what I wore to parties and was jealous of my male friends. I even visited my best friend M during freshman year so we could get our long-awaited tattoos together, a lock and key like the one we had left on the infamous and now underwater bridge in Paris together on our 16th birthdays.

R hated this. He made me feel small and unworthy because of it. He was (and still is) the love of my life; his words cut deep. His disapproval rang out in my head, an echo of my childhood reminding me not to get too comfortable in my newfound freedom.

My college friends started to make other friends. They were putting themselves out into the social scene while I shrank deeper into my bed and filled my time facetiming R sometimes until 4-5 in the morning.

I left college in a state opposite to what they say college is intended for. If anything, I lost more of myself than I thought I had left. Barely scraping together the friendships I managed to hold onto and the roller-coaster of a relationship I didn’t have the backbone to course correct.

I set my eyes on California. A place that lives and breathes individuality. No more frumpy winter jackets and the East Coast mentality that riddled my life: conform or die trying.

I wasn’t interested in a career, much to the confusion of my parents and peers; I was interested in finally living after so much surviving.

Too bad for me, I had no idea what this meant or looked like in practice.

A few years into my California life with my perfect dog, a much matured R, a Pinterest apartment, a capsule wardrobe of neutrals, a TikTok-approved skincare routine, a friend group, and a job that only sounded cool on paper (shoutout to my fellow marketers), I thought to myself: Ah, at last, perfection attained.

But it felt hollow in comparison to my expectations. The girls in my friend group asked me for advice on my wardrobe and skincare, seeing something in my perfection, they sought to attain their own.

And it made me feel sad.

Never in my life had I wanted to be one of many. I spent years actively avoiding conformity, desperate for the world to see and accept me for all that I was different, and only then, when finding failure in that approach, did I shrink myself to their level.

So I bought a red shirt.

A truly unusual color for me, even to this day.

There was nothing special about it, just a red T-shirt that stood out in bright contrast to the sea of white, grey, and navy that made up my closet.

I started to wear it when we would hang out in the group because I liked the way it made me feel other, and quite possibly somewhat better than these girls that I wanted to find me cool, not for how I could blend into them, but how I could stand out from them.

Then I bought a pair of electric blue overalls from a shop in town. I was in love with them. Every time I walked into the shop, I would stare at them in longing for the person I could be if I wore them.

On maybe the 5th visit to the shop, I saw they only had one pair left, and in my size, too. Taking the sign, I swiped it off the rack and dashed to the checkout. Addrenehline, acting for me as I tapped my card at the register, wrapped this new piece of my identity in teal tissue paper.

They sat in my closet for almost a year before a dinner on the town for New Year’s Eve build just enough courage in me to wear them out with my friends.

I was aware of their surprise as I strolled up to E’s front door, and she was there in her usual light wash jeans, white sneakers, and non-descript blouse (no hate - I own more variations of this look than I can count). Her eyes go wide, and then she quickly recovers because I know her well enough to know she won’t give me the satisfaction of her real feelings on the matter.

We press on. I get the same little eye pop from the rest of the girls as they file in, and I’m both feeling extremely self-conscious but also emboldened. As my serial on how not to make friends as an adult delves further, this was not a friendship built on praising individuality. No, this was a friend group rooted in insecurity and competition, and I had quietly but markedly upped the ante.

Until they started to shun me for it.

Personality is a threat to those who struggle with their own. I know it, I’ve lived it. I feel it still to this day.

There is a nagging voice in my head when I make a choice, running through the list of people I know and how that choice might land with them. What they will say when they find out, and if I can live with the weight of that judgment.

But then, I’m choosing for them. And when do I ever get to choose for myself?

My brother died in October of 2022. I can’t say it wasn’t a possibility we had all considered after 10 years of battling with addiction, but it still was a complete and life-altering shock.

300+ people came to his memorial.

They talked about his love to flowers, of art, of culture and opera. They talked about his wild fashion (indeed) and how he spray-painted the side of his 2007 Honda Accord with a giant orange creature just to stand out, even on the road.

He would host dinners and decorate the spaces with whimsy, flowers, and treasures he picked up from the world.

He would write long, handwritten letters to us all.

He lived in Brooklyn, Madrid, on a farmstead in Portugal, Shanghai, London, and California.

He was untamable in his sense of self. And he paid the ultimate price for it.

He died just a few months before his 30th birthday.

We weren’t close. We didn’t get the chance to be, but sitting there, at his wake, hearing of all that he had done and all the lives he had touched, I think something primal in me shattered.

If I died at 29, what would they say?

Why do I touch people?

Do I even?

I want to.

I moved us out of San Diego a few months later. Deeming it no longer the place to find myself. In order to touch myself first, so that I might one day touch others, I must go back to my roots and ask for help.

I came wholly unraveled after this move. I didn’t realize how much I had grown my identity around fake friends in a fake place. How they bolstered my ego and kept me small for so many years, but felt like progress and perfection just the same.

It shocked me. I spiraled.

I got fired from a fake job I hated and realized how nice it was to walk dogs and wake up early to work the front desk of a nearby fitness studio. I spent my days ice skating, playing with dogs, and working on mock-ups for my portfolio.

No pressure, no being for anyone else’s benefit, just existing in the here and now.

Since then, I have been putting in real work. I went back to therapy, and I conquered a very major and prevalent fear of anxiety medication. I’ve been auditing my life, reconnecting with my body, and weeding my garden, so to speak. Marie Kondo certainly had one thing right: if it does not spark joy, it’s not for you.

But in place of her minimalist agenda, I’ve found the most joy in color. In undiluted muchness. And, it’s not without a mountain of self-doubt, insecurity, and anxiety kicked up in the wake of making choices that bring me, and possibly me alone, happiness.

I have ridden the wave of Depression. Starved at the cruel hand of Anxiety. Bowed still at the behest of those who once controlled me.

I have worn the blue overalls proudly some days. I have put them on only to take them right off in favor of something more familiar just as often.

I bought a house and filled it with what I had. Where versions of me would previously have rushed to unceremoniously make the house perfect by someone else’s vision, this house felt different.

For one, it was far too big, and I was far too house-poor to do much but live in its walls as they came.

But in even a year, color sings through my life for the very first time.

Various shades of green, a bright blue door to the garage, a sunshine yellow office, pink and orange throw pillows, and a baby blue duvet. All the once beige corners of my existence are coming alive one small choice at a time.

I am an artist. I am a writer. A truth I knew in my bones before I ever touched pen to paper or finger to keyboard. But I was scared because to be an artist is to be imperfect and yet never satisfied with imperfection. Well, I felt that my entire life, so now to invite it in and to make myself the only critic who matters, that’s final boss mode.

To become, I must first conquer. To conquer, I must first relinquish. To relinquish, I must first accept. To accept, I must first acknowledge.

It takes time.

It is painful.

This past weekend, I had a beautiful moment of clarity. One that, like all things, will pass but not without me first harvesting all that it has to reveal to me.

It doesn’t have to be so serious.

Joy is an unserious thing.

Life is serious, but the living of it does not have to be.

So I did a little online shopping.

And as I was shopping, I let joy be my guide (RIP my wallet).

If something spoke to me and only me, I added it to my cart.

a smattering of what fed my spirit

Along with two cute toe rings and an anklet, I saw these adornments while shopping for sandals for some upcoming travels, and I HAD to try them for myself.

Then my husband came home after 7 days apart, a long time for us, and he brought me my favorite candy, and I made him breakfast as we sat together and caught up on our shared adventures of the past week.

We decided to go antiquing because he wanted to take me to a place he had gone to last time I was away. I bought this adorable little frog for the front of our house… because, joy!

Then we remembered a sign we had seen in our tiny town about a plant sale, with proceeds going to town beautification. SAY LESS.

joy & color

I promptly planted these (a first for me) outside the front of my house, which was in desperate need of some personalization. My husband joined me even though he thought he wouldn’t want to, and we were giggling and falling down the front slope of the house.

We hung some colorful lights he got me for Valentine’s Day, finally, in our backyard.

And I finished the stool I’ve been working on making by hand with my step-dad for 3 months!

color & joy

Nothing inherently productive. Nothing that furthers my status or role in the ecosystem of our complex society.

My dog threw up for half a day during this; my husband injured his back, some of the flowers are wilting slightly, because nothing can ever or will ever be perfect. It’s in the acceptance of the imperfect that we learn to exist and extract beauty from the struggles and joys of being alive.

I have the cutest front-of-house on my block. I don’t have the most well-manicured or polished. I don’t want to.

I just want you to pull up to my house and think, with a smile, "Oh, this must be June’s.”

I want to run out and throw my arms around you, inviting you in with love. I want this to be a place where you, too, know from the moment you enter that you are welcome to be nothing more and nothing less than your purest and truest of selves.

anyway, here it is…

-June

I invite you to stay and be seen here.

for words with nowhere else to go

unspoken thoughts, unfinished feelings, & everything in between

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