Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside

Yesterday I:

• walked 14,000 steps, or just over, up to Scheveningen, along the beach, past the pier, and back via Madurodam. It was a bit of a dreich day, but I fancied a decent walk and going up to the beach and back is a favourite route if my aim is to get a fair amount of miles clocked, and this extended version is just over five of those on foot. Yes, it's not the most scenic route, except for the mile or so along the beach front, but it's simple and on a day like this when nature is taking some 'me' time and not caring so much about the wants of humanity, it's ideal for a good leg stretch without having to worry if there's enough juice left in the phone battery in case of emergency photo-taking. Okay, I took one photo, but there were extenuating circumstances: Many, many boats.
  
  
  
  
  
  (I also like walking this route, because it takes me through the shopping arcade at the pier which houses my brother's favourite chocolate shop. Well, a shop that houses his favourite chocolate. Ach, it's probably his favourite chocolate shop, too! (The Swiss brand Lindt, for those of the wondering persuasion.) I like to have a look in there when I pass to see if I can find anything that he wouldn't be able to find at home, because surprising him with something he's never seen before made from his favourite brand is cool and unusual. He's not very... shall we say excitable when it comes to receiving gifts, so presenting him with something new from his favourite sweetie brand is worth its weight in gold-wrapped Lindor.) Which takes me to my next bullet point:
• didn't buy any chocolate for myself. And there's a cinnamon-coriander variety of Lindor just out. I am sure you will understand the will-power that had to be exerted for me to leave the shop without handing over a significant portion of my grocery budget to be the custodian (even if only for a few short days) of such chocolate perfection.
• kept within my calorie limit. Thanks in part to, you know, not purchasing the Cinnamon Lindor of The Gods. 
• had excellent hair. It's naturally long and straight, but I wind it up in a bun when it's damp to give it a bit of movement, and yesterday those waves were vintage Hollywood (ish) and behaved almost impeccably when I went out. (My hair is my only vanity, at least when it doesn't look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards, which sadly happens more often than not.) Yes, it was partly because there was hardly any wind for a change, because normally when you live this close to the North Sea, Wind Happens. Every day. Sometimes gale-force, very, very occasionally the gentlest zephyr's breath. Usually it's on the blustery umbrella-mangling end of the scale, so yesterday I was surprised to find the breeze lightly caressing my hair around my face, instead of whipping it about like I was an extra in Hurricane Chasers III - The Attack Of The Mane. It was a good hair day.
• worked-out. I hooped for half an hour or so, then made my triceps complain that it was Sunday, and surely that's supposed to be a day of rest. Mwahahahah! No chance! I am a mean muscle-mom! 
• let all that positivity be completely eclipsed by a cute man giving me the once-over with a snide smile-snort as he saw me walk out of the chocolate shop at the beach.

Why do I let people do that to me? What I really mean is, why do I let these people into my head? I will probably never see this guy ever again. He deserves not even a pinhead-sized plot of my brain real-estate. Yet...

Just before that I was feeling pretty okay. I was just over halfway of a really good calorie-crushing walk, it hadn't rained although I brought my trusty black umbrella that makes me feel like a female John Steed (the ORIGINAL Avenger) just in case, my hair was all Rita Hayworth (redhead version), and I had left the chocolate shop after not buying anything, feeling a little virtuous in the knowledge that I didn't actually need anything there, and WHAM! Stupid head thinking that a stranger's opinion of me was more important that my own self-acknowledged awesomeness. And not only that, I let this stranger's rudeness take hold, and grow pervasive confidence-draining roots into my self-esteem. Shame on him, but shame on me, too.

Seeing a fat chick walking out of chocolate shop is quite the stereotype. I get the inherent need to judge. I don't like it, but I've been alive long enough to know how humanity works at a base level. But you know, you can think mean thoughts without letting the meanness show on the outside. You can make snarky assumptions about me and my (presumed) lifestyle without inviting the world to share in your exaggerated sneer. There's no need to mock me so openly just because you've snap-decided that the reason I look the way I look is because I'm lazy and greedy, or whatever your particular chosen cliché is.

But, underneath this disquiet, I have to realise that I can't change this man. Amongst other personality traits, he has been conditioned by society to treat certain things with contempt, and for that I can't fault him so much. I do fault him for his methods in displaying his conditioning, though. You don't have to act like a dick just because you don't like something, or don't understand something, or are uncomfortable when faced with something that confuses you.

What I can attempt to change is my own reaction when faced with emotional ineptitude in the behaviour of others towards me. It's something I do try to do, but not always successfully, and although it doesn't make a dent in the surrounding layers of ignorance, I can try to use a more positive reaction to repair some of the cracks in my own armour, and instead turn them from blemishes into beauty marks.

• Yesterday I let myself be brought down. 
• Today I'm going to bring myself right back up again.