an interesting thing is happening. well, a lot of interesting things are happening, but one in particular to talk about today. i've started to wear makeup - the green kind that tempers some of the redness of my rosacea, and some great powder. and i've started to run a straightener through my curly hair because it looks better with that modicum of effort. and in doing these things, i don't flip so fast through the magazine pages about makeup and beauty products, because i don't feel like they're in a world so far from mine.
now let me be clear, i've always loved makeup and manicures and products of all kinds, and back before i ever went on weight watchers and lost weight the first time, i spent tons of time and money on gussying up. that was a time when i felt confident and pretty in spite of my weight, and i felt confident that others agreed. my mother, expressing her concern about my weight and health, once suggested that i was in denial - only looking at myself from the neck up. and that was true.
when i joined weight watchers and lost weight, people started sharing their prior impressions of me and their worries and observations - how heavy i was getting, how you couldn't see my pretty face anymore, how i looked physically uncomfortable in chairs and booths and cars. at the time when i was losing, it was sort of thrilling to hear those things because they were the "before" to my fast approaching "after."
but once i started to regain, eventually to much heavier than i started, those comments were indelible in my mind and i became more insecure and embarrassed than i had ever been before - the blinders had come off. i didn't have the energy or confidence to care about makeup and hair anymore. i developed this hopeless feeling that no matter what i did, all people would see was my size, so i did the bare minimum. in a lot of ways, effort on makeup and hair is a visual sign that you care, and that you think your appearance matters and that you want others to agree. it’s a way of putting yourself out there in regards to how you look, and it's vulnerable. it felt presumptuous and embarrassing to me. i couldn't relate to my mother and sister's excitement over a new primer or an undereye cream because it just didn't feel like it mattered. it almost made me depressed that they cared - like, what difference does it make? i vaguely remembered with shame when i cared, but that was before i had learned that it didn't matter and that it was a waste for me to have tried.
so recently, when i started feeling good enough to try again, i had certain hesitations, the largest of which was that i wouldn't know what people were responding to when they compliment me on how i'm looking. it sounds vain, and maybe it is, that my main concern was how a new aesthetic effort would impact the compliments i received. but it was more that i felt the need to know where i stand physically -- perhaps more with myself than with anyone else. i’m in a neither here-nor-there place with size at the moment…not so large that i draw attention, but large enough that i don’t blend in either. so how would i know if people were noticing my weight loss or if it was the makeup or the hair? when people say how i've started to look so small, how do i know if it’s me shrinking or the flatter, more controlled hairstyle? and when people say i'm glowing, how do i know if its the makeup or my emerging health and happiness?
well...i don't know. and it doesn't matter, because they're inextricably linked. people might be noticing a smoother complexion or glow because of the makeup, but the makeup is there in the first place because my emotional and physical transformation made me strong enough to put it on.
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