Think about how much of your life is spent in pursuit of looking “better.” How many colors has your hair been? How many shades of eye shadow have you tried throughout the years? Then there are all the creams, lotions, and ointments, designed to make us look younger, tanner, less blemished. And as you age, don’t you assume that you should buy more and more expensive versions of these things? I graduated from Cover Girl to Clinique in attempt to look better. Surely if I spend more money, I’ll be prettier! But there has never been satisfaction, there is never the final “just right” product.
Something strange has been happening to me lately: I’ve been getting more compliments on my hair color than I ever have in my entire life. Maybe you’re a brunette, too, and you’d like to know the number or name of the color, so you can pick up a box at the store or ask your stylist for it? Too bad, suckas – it’s my actual hair color. As in, a color I haven’t seen since 1993, when I first started dyeing my hair. As in, the color nature intended my hair to be.
Go figure, right? I’ve spent twenty years lightening and darkening (but mostly lightening) my hair, in the hopes that… what? That I’ll like it better? That other people might like it better? That it will be more attractive, more admired, more accepted? No color was ever quite right, so I kept trying new ones. And then, when my awesome and amazing and talented stylist Heather cut my hair back in November and the last of the faded blonde highlights fell to the floor, that’s when I started getting compliments left and right. I mean, I’ve even got grays now! Not many, but enough so that in the right light, it looks like there are strands of silver among all that brown.
My hair muse, Jamie Lee Curtis. C’mon, grays!
Confession: The only time I ever go out of my house without wearing makeup is when I’m exercising. This used to be limited to Saturday mornings in the summer when training Gilda’s Gang, and then on half marathon race days. Now I go to the gym bare-faced on the weekends (on the weekdays, I go after work, so of course I’m already made up). It’s a big step!
I’ve had people tell me before that they hadn’t noticed I was wearing makeup. Pardon my shock face, but really? If you saw this face without eyeliner, eyeshadow, mascara, and blush, you’d probably faint dead away at the horror! Now off course I don’t really believe that, but I do think you’d notice a difference. On the few times I’ve tried to go with less eye makeup, I only last a day or two. I’ve just come to believe, after all these years, that I’m prettier, more attractive, “better” when I’m wearing makeup. And I’m definitely more comfortable and confident.
I know I stashed my confidence somewhere in this box…
But… but what if it’s like my hair color? What if I’m not “just okay” without makeup, what if I’m still pretty and attractive, and I can learn to feel comfortable and confident?
We spend so much of our time pursuing something outside ourselves, whether it’s trying to mold a body part (or an entire body) into a specific shape or capturing just the right look that makes us into that mythical “better” version of ourselves. What if we stopped pursuing? What if we got up in the morning and didn’t use that anti-wrinkle cream, didn’t pick up that mascara wand, didn’t make another appointment to fight our gray hairs? What if the most natural version of ourselves is the better version?
Maybe you’re already there. I have plenty of friends who go out in the world bare-faced every day. I know people who have never dyed their hair. But even if it’s not hair or make-up related, I think that each of us has a change related to our appearance that we are constantly pursuing. Do we ever find what we’re looking for, or do we just keep chasing?
It took me awhile to get used to seeing my real hair color when I looked in the mirror. Where were the blond highlights, the beautiful tones and shades, the lightness? But now I’m so comfortable with that shade of brown that is particularly mine. I look in the mirror and I see… me.
Tomorrow, I might skip the eye makeup. We’ll see.
