Frustrated in general

Warning: PMS induced rant. Normall I can keep this crap all under wraps, but tonight I’m just feeling frustrated and frumpy.

I’m 27 years old. Three years shy of 30, and I still get people telling me I look 19. Honestly. For most women, this would be a blessing. For me.. I look in the mirror sometimes and I see a kid. The same kid I was a decade ago. I many ways, I am. I still act like one in many ways (good ways, like loving life)… but I still look the same as I did back then. Same center part, same baby-fine hair that I can’t do anything with. I was out catching frogs and falling in mud holes as a kid, not learning how to do neat and pretty things with my hair. I keep seeing high school girls with a more mature look than me!

Normally, I don’t give a flip about how I look. Oh, I worry if I have a giant zit on my nose or if my shirt’s on inside-out, but otherwise I don’t spend more than 5 minutes in the morning to brush my teeth and run a brush through my hair. I spend more time thinking my breath smells than about how my hair looks. Lately though, I just keep thinking I look like I’m 17. This worries me a bit when it comes to this ‘new job’. If I don’t look professional and mature, no one will take me seriously enough to hire me. Is it really an issue or is it just me worrying that I’m turning into a frumpy house girlfriend? And if it IS an issue, how does one change 27 years of tomboy into a career woman?

I saw a woman at the playground the other day while I was there with Muchie’s friend. She was asian (of course, all asian women are stunning anyway) and had this stunning hair and clothes. Her hair was cut to part on the side and sweep across her forehead and curl in layers to her shoulders. It looked like it stayed there effortlessly, who thehell knows how she did that. Plus she’s wearing black slacks, black heels (on a playground!) and a black top with some white lace in vertical stripes. The whole thing was young and still very professional. I mean, next to her I looked like a high-school kid waiting for her dad to pick her up in the minivan.

This all comes to head in the middle of a long week of no work. I have no shoot lined up for this weekend, no photos that are waiting for me to edit. I have nothing to DO durring the day and so I can’t sleep at night.. which is why I’m now up at 2am. I have no shoots lined up at all, actually. No end to the monotony that is siting at home all day. This really worries me. Now that I’ve done photos for friends last month, none of them will need anything this month. I’ve got no upcoming prospects unless someone e-mails me out of the blue. Not a day goes by that I don’t think to myself “What the hell are you doing? Get out while you still can!” or “What made you think YOU could make this work?”

I can’t draw when I’m stressed, nor can I write. I never have been able to. I haven’t been this stressed in years. Since high-school, probably. I’ve put on 10 pounds. It looks nice on me and I’m glad to have it, but I know it’s all stress-related. I’ve put so much work into this, and I feel like it’s just not.. ‘happening’ fast enough. Logically, I know that everyone in the city won’t be beating down my door just because I declared I’m now a ‘pro’. But.. I still feel like some of my hard work should be paying off. I just want to be out there, taking pictures. I don’t have anyone to attack with the camera though, and the normal ways I get rid of pent-up frustrated energy just aren’t working.