Confessions Of A Complex Creature... My Lip Gloss Matters & I Don't Care Who Knows It

The last three things I do before I leave my apartment to face an especially busy/challenging/stressful day are to put on the following: my earrings & anklet, my moisturizer, my lip gloss.  I do these things because they make feel good.  I do these things because I haven't worn cosmetics in 7 years and in the absence of makeup, I think they make me look nicer.  I do these things because they give me a confidence boost.  I do those things because they put a little spring in my step. 

I do these things because I know that soon enough after leaving the cocoon of my apartment, the ugliness of the world will rear its head and start to strip away at me, and those little granted-to-me-by-me pamperings are my bit of self-fortification.  If my friends were to ask me what are some of the things I do to prep for a tough day, I would absolutely include all of these things on that list.

These things are important to me.  Yes they are.  Very.  ZERO shame in saying so.  They are allowed to be the gift to the external me that meditation is to the internal me. My earrings and my anklet and my moisturizer and my lip gloss are as sacred a part of my morning ritual as my email and my shower and smoothie and my toothbrush. 

My gal pals, the world can be so ugly... you're allowed to want to be pretty if you so choose.  I don't strive to be pretty because I don't think I have the natural looks to do so, and it would be an ending cycle of useless preoccupation and disappointment.  I do have days when I strive to look as nice as I'm capable of looking, however, and sometimes I pull off something not half-bad.  You can make whatever you want to be important to your daily life important, no matter how trivial someone else may think it is.  If beautifully manicured nails make you happy, great.  If perfectly waxed legs make you happy, great.  If glowing skin makes you happy, great.  If long-lasting mascara makes you happy, great.  Those things don't define your life, but neither does Netflix or Nutella and many of us do both often.  It won't always be possible to focus on externals and it obviously isn't always relevant or appropriate.  Cleaning the house?  Probably not the best time for nail polish.  Cleaning the kids?  Probably no time for anything.  Marching in a rally?  Not thinking "Curling iron".  That wet spot on your neck may sometimes be perfume.  It may sometimes be baby drool.  That's life.  Kool and wondrous and sexy and unglamorous.   Circumstances change as do our moods and desires. 

All of it is equally real and worthy of validation.

How off-base would it be for others to imply, or conversely to infer, that my stated yen for moisturizer somehow compromises my substance?  I'll answer that.  Very.  Newsflash -- I can care about children and politics and social justice AND be totally feelin' my earrings at the same time.  A woman can stand up to any man and hold her own in an intellectual conversation and crave lustrous hair at the same time.  Surprise surprise -- I can fight for gender equity AND love my lip gloss at the same time. 

The truth of the second half of each of these pairings does not make the truth of the first half any less.

Because we are not just one thing.  We are a million things, including visual beings.

Interestingly enough, it is the criticism of making the earrings and the moisturizer a personal priority that is reductionist.  It assumes that if those things are important to you, other meaningful things are less so.  It assumes that a company that makes these things views women as skin and lips and nothing else.  (Which is as short-sighted as suggesting that a company that makes women's undergarments sees women solely as breasts & genitalia).  It assumes that because you value things that grace your exterior, that you view them as the source of your worth and your strength.  It assumes that your personal aesthetic is the result of an imposed societal expectation and not your own will.

It completely negates the fact that a smart, capable, substantive woman might just feel that she can kick the crap out of her day a little bit harder with a tube of red lipstick in her pocket.

I don't wear lipstick.  But I don't begrudge a strong woman feeling further empowered by it. 

Today I hang out at home.  It's 4 pm and I'm in my robe.  No moisturizer has happened, no lip gloss has happened.  Heck, no shower has happened -- although it's on deck as soon as I post this.  (No really, it is.)   And shock of shocks -- I do not feel like less of a valuable human being without them.  When I venture out, I'll do those little things that make me happy.  And that yes, are important to me.  I will put on the things that make me feel oh-so-slightly adorned while still natural and wholly myself.  Anyone, male or female, who thinks that that is vacuous, or dumb, or conforming to a gender stereotype... knock yourself out.  I find that assertion - frankly - pretty damned stereotypical.

There is nothing wrong with certain aspects of your appearance being important to you.
There is nothing wrong with certain aspects of your appearance being unimportant to you.
The former does not make you wrong.
The latter not does make you right.
The former does not make you the stereotype of a shallow woman, any more than the latter makes you the prototype of a deep one.
Most of us feel and are and choose to be both, depending on the hour or the day.
So paint your nails, curl your hair, strut in your heels.
Sport a baseball cap, rock your sweats, wear out your sneakers.

DO YOU.

I guess I should be getting into the shower now... afterward, I must head to the library.  Trust that I will be wearing my moisturizer.  My earrings.  My anklet.  My lip gloss.  My well-earned, well-deserved, self-allotted mini-joy.  My fresh-faced, fierce, female indulgences. 

My brain's coming too.

Namaste,
TT