i've decided to switch to a new scent and last monday, i started using this new perfume i bought two weeks ago. 

i had been using moonlight path by bath and body works consistently for some time now, which was actually, by accident.  i had priorly used amber romance by victoria's secret as my signature scent but have been unable to buy myself a bottle for the past year and a half since the stores always ran out of stock whenever it's time for me to buy one.  what started out as a temporary alternative eventually turned into a second choice by default and in the passage of time, have marked itself as my signature scent. 

the recent switch is actually two-fold.  not only am i switching brands but i'm also switching from cologne to perfume again. the last time i had perfume as my scent (and it was clinique happy) was about four years ago. don't get me wrong. even when i've been using the above-mentioned colognes as my everyday scent, i do break the monotony by spraying on a perfume occassionally. when the mood strikes. or when i'm on a night out with friends. 

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one of the unforgettable, if not the most unusual, smell-related compliments i ever received was a few days after one of my scent-switching transitions.  it was also the best non sequitur i have heard that year.  X was giving me a ride home that day and while i was in the middle of telling him an anecdote about a friend we had just figured we had in common, he just explicitly stated: "you changed your smell."  stunned by the interruption, i could only look at him questioningly. and then he elaborated.

"you always smell sweet and romantic.  it seems contradictory on you but i like how it tells me that in spite of this 'astig' image you usually try to pull over people's eyes,  you are still a softie inside. babae ka pa rin."

"teka, wait. so now i don't smell that way?

"you still do. i just noticed your fragrance is a tad different this week but it has the same effect. i'm not sure which one i like better, though."

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last weekend, i had my hair cut.  i told the hairdresser to chop 5 inches off.  it was supposed to be just that only.  but when i saw the length of my hair that got cut off, the urge for a drastic change got more pronounced that i eventually gave in. "sige na nga. pa-layer na rin."  which led to more cutting that in the end, my mane got more than 5 inches shorter. 

the change in my hair is also two-fold.  not only have i considerably altered its length (although my hair still doesn't fall in the short length category) but i've also changed the style from one-length to layered.  i can't even remember the last time my hair was short and layered.  the one i can remember though is the first of my college yearbook photos.  my hairstyle then was very similar to the one i have now, only much shorter.

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now that i look back and reminisce the changes my hair had been through for the past twelve years or so, i realize i was actually following a pattern. subconsciously, anyway.  i always cut my hair short and then let it grow over a long period of time.  although i trim it every now and then when the length is near the bra line, the trim is never more than an inch or two that it hardly ever gets noticed.  then i'd break the monotony by cutting a good long chunk off it, which i may or may not accompany with a layered style.  the layering eventually gets trimmed once my hair gets to a certain length.  i'm really just oscillating between a short (layered) bob and a long, straight and one-length hair.

and so it is, i also realize, with my changing scents.  i may change my scent but i am always inclined towards the classic and floral type.

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just when i think i have learned the way to live, life changes and i am left the same as i began. the more things change the more i am the same.  -- hugh prather, notes to myself

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so even makeovers adhere to chaos theory: an underlying order can be found in what are apparently disordered or random changes. 

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to reiterate, this week, i changed two signatures i've had for quite some time: my scent and my hair.  changing either is more often than not a great deal to everyone, especially women.  so it's inevitable that i would be asked by some stupefied friends the big "WHY?!!" as they wonder whatever happened to make me act so rashly.  and with a shrug, i usually give a flippant answer.

"ala lang."
"i just felt like it."
"it's no biggie. i had planned it for weeks na."
"it was just time for a change, is all."

but of course, things are not always what they seem.  dear friends must assume the reason is more than the usual need for a change. 

what can i say?  i am, as some people would say, a fortress.  quite the fortress at this point, in fact, that even i don't want to problematize it long enough to acknowledge the triggering factors behind my recent meanderings.  such incongruity, you might say, to be so defensive even against one's self.  but then, isn't it true that in the silence of one's solitude, one often hears the truth, discerns the problems and recognize the solutions?

and if experience taught me anything, it's that i'm most likely to end up hurting and that yet again, i opened myself to the world and have allowed it to take my heart in its hands and give it palpitations.  oh yes, my heart has had its share of little deaths. and i fear that another one is coming soon. i don't think i'm ready for that just yet.

so please forgive me, dear friend, if i haven't been as forthcoming with this recent phase in my life.

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sometimes a drastic change is just one timid step towards something else.

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"everything is yielding towards a foregone conclusion, only we are rash enough to go on changing our lives."  -- adrienne rich