Today I'm linking up to Lisa-Jo aka gypsy mama, who chooses a topic every Friday and writes for five minutes.
Only five minutes.
And the rule is that whatever she writes about in that five minutes is what she posts. No editing her thoughts. Today, her topic choice is "when I look in the mirror, I see."
So I'm going to set the timer, write some thoughts, and then I'm going to stop.
Ready? Set. Go.
::
When I look in the mirror I see the bare truth of me.
I was a girl who wouldn't be caught dead without her makeup on as soon as I started wearing it. My mom owned a Merle Norman Cosmetics studio and I lived by our motto of "natural beauty takes time."
Even in college, whether in the dorms or living off campus with my friends at the Big House, I slept with makeup on, took a shower to wash it off and then reapplied my makeup before leaving the bathroom again. No one knew what I looked like under my lovely mask.
It's not because I thought I was all that. It's because I didn't. It's because I didn't ever want people to see me as just… me. There was one day at the Big House when Susie about died laughing at me because I stepped out of the bathroom to set the garbage outside the back door, and I panicked when I realized I had no makeup on.
It was the back door. No one was there. No one saw me. But it had been so many years since I had stepped foot outside my home without makeup that I actually panicked.
INSANE.
Oh, how times have changed. Just another way illness strips us of who we think we are. Early in my hospital stays I made sure to at least have mascara on. Later in my hospital stays I was truly too sick to care. And now in my every day life… I'm too tired or weak to make the effort for just me.
And you know what? I'm getting used to it. I don't feel so odd just being me anymore. I even skyped with Matthew and Jessica the other day and talked for a good 10 minutes before I realized I was bare-faced. Now when I look in the mirror I don't see anything but the face God gave me, and it's ok.
But that doesn't mean I won't put on a little eyeliner if you come over for a visit. :)