Go Ahead, Let Your Hair Down

A little meditation on "Put Your Records On"

For some people, the idea of doing what you want feels dangerous and radical. Would stopping to read the paper in the grass relax or frighten you? Carl Larsson, A Lady Reading A Newspaper.

Hey everyone,

I have a few informal thoughts to share today.

I am 40 years old, almost 41. If you’re around my age, you may remember this song by Corinne Bailey Rae. If you are not or you don’t, I invite you to pause for a moment and listen to it. And if you do remember it — well, I invite you to pause for a moment and listen to it, too.

Maybe you liked it, or maybe you found much to criticize. Certainly some of the specifics might not be right (I haven’t thought each and every word through). But let’s bracket that for a moment, if you don’t mind, and think about this song another way.

As many readers may know, my mother died very suddenly just after I turned 13. As a result of that loss and a series of domino effects that followed, I had little feminine formation or influence during my adolescence. A few readers who know me personally may even remember me from that time — accomplished, determined, talented, imaginative, dull, depressed, hidden, frightened, trapped — or they may remember me as some of these things, but not realize that I was some of the others. A lot of things happened in that time, good and bad.

I had a friend during my teenaged years, Mandy, who was seven or eight years older than me. Her mother and my mother had been dear friends, and my mother had watched Mandy in our home daycare for many years when she was a kid. Mandy did a lot after my mother died to try to help me.

One thing she did, I remember, was introduce me to this song.

I didn’t get it at the time, but I think Mandy saw what was happening to me in a way that most other adults did not. She saw that I was trying to protect myself by meeting exacting and unpredictable standards, some of which were imagined and some of which were real. But Mandy didn’t want me to lose my connection with myself or, just as importantly, to hide myself so deeply that my decisions were primarily based on fear.

The physician Gabor Mate argues that trauma often causes disconnection from the self. Now, I always kept that nugget of self deep-down; I’ve always protected it, and I’ve never lost it. I’ve been told that I’m stubborn, and I’m glad of it. We need fighters. It’s good to be stubborn when you’re in battle.

I’ve also been told that I’m calm and gentle. That softness is part of my self, too. (The appearance of calm is mostly the result of concerted effort, though; it does not usually reflect my interior state.)

I returned to this song recently because I have been doing a lot of reconnection with myself in the past five years, in part through EMDR therapy in the past two. A few years ago, I often could not have told you whether I was hot or cold, hungry or full, safe or in danger, and I frequently would not act to relieve my physical discomfort even when I recognized it. I was in physical pain every day (I still am, most days, but it’s certainly better now) and I just told myself always that it didn’t matter, I had to go ahead anyways as if it weren’t there. I was that disconnected even just from my physical body.

Emotionally, I’ve always been attuned to myself — but I have not always been able to admit to emotions, as my assessment of myself has always been powerfully influenced from the outside. Naming my emotions or taking action to ease my suffering has long felt dangerous. Sometimes, the world really wants to just bind you up for its convenience, as if you weren’t even a person. (Side note: can we please stop talking about women as if they were a different species?) Yet pain does matter, even if other people think you are wrong to have it; and you are a person, even if other people sometimes treat you as a category.

But listen to the words of this song: this song is about the self being a place of safety. It sings that letting your hair down is safe. That playing music and singing and watching birds on your windowsill and riding a bike with the wind in your hair are safe. That trusting in something — in my eyes, in God — is safe.

We need this kind of music because it tells us not to be afraid of being our real selves. Coping mechanisms are gifts when they keep us safe, but too often they become habits the last too long into our lives.

I know, I know — perhaps it seems absurd to you to read me saying that many poeple actually need less self-discipline. Goodness, our world is one of hedonism and harm and despicable selfishness. That is true. It is also true that it is never okay to act immorally and it is certainly not okay to abdicate your responsibilities.

But maybe you’re not a person who needs help with keeping to the straight and narrow. Maybe you’re being pretty relentlessly hard on yourself (and on others) already, and that really is damaging, too, and is preventing you from truly living out the virtues that you value so deeply. Perhaps you’re someone who needs to be reminded that you actually can, quite often, do what you like. That mistakes are signs of our humanity, and don’t need to be threatening. If you accept your own mistakes, then you can also stop expecting perfection of others. What a gift that would be to give to other people in your life — if you let your hair down, they can let down theirs, as well, and you can really love each other.

Only you know which message you need to hear — for me, it’s the letting my hair down one. What about you? Have you forgotten in some way, small or large, that you’re a human being, and that you can live as one, and that the good Lord delights in you?

If so, well, go ahead now and try something. Put your records on. Let your hair down. And if you can’t — if that frightens you — maybe consider why. (Maybe even consider EMDR.)

Warmly yours,

Dixie