Sometimes I wonder how women survived "way back when". --Before hairdye hid the gray hairs, razors smoothed our legs, before lotions and mascaras and lipsticks and bras and accessories made us sparkly and pretty and different from our natural born selves.
Sometimes I envy those times. How much time do we feel obligated to spend washing, conditioning, drying, mousse-ing, straightening, curling, spraying, and teasing our hair? I mean, it's fun now and then, but doesn't it often feel like an obligation, like one more chore? It does to me.
And nowadays, not only do we have so many beauty tools, but we also have a beauty bible in the form of big screens and magazines. The beauty bible is ever-changing, and it's not very kind. It presents, and not politely: air-brushed, well-detailed, mostly unrealistic beauty idols for us to emulate, whether we want to or not. We either work hard to fit in with these beauty idols of the media beauty bible, or we dismiss them and accept our fate as less-thans.
But even if we mostly dismiss the ongoing media-beauty bibles and live as independently as possible of them, in our only-sometimes-beautiful selves, we still live in a society that is permeated by them, and we still know that we are "supposed to" be gorgeous.
Well, I had a good laugh the other night.
I had to buy my husband a new dress shirt on my way home from the pool. So we stopped in at Ross.
I'd been swimming with my kids and their cousins at the PG pool all day. So my face was dried out, chlorinated, a little sunburned, and makeup-free. My hair was in a sticking-out ponytail with half of it fallen out, and with strange spikes of bangs going at odd angles. In a mirror of a dressing room of Ross, baby in my arms, I saw my reflection in the mirror with a sudden mixture of horror and humor.
Then I dropped the horror and just laughed. This had been a great day, a happy day, a fun day, and it showed. It had been the baby's first time in an outdoor pool. We'd all had a great time. If the cameras had been rolling, it wouldn't have mattered to me.
I am happy that at this point in my forty one years of life, image is becoming so much less important, while inner beauties and true joy are becoming more real.
So many of the best moments and days in life ain't pretty.
Sometimes I envy those times. How much time do we feel obligated to spend washing, conditioning, drying, mousse-ing, straightening, curling, spraying, and teasing our hair? I mean, it's fun now and then, but doesn't it often feel like an obligation, like one more chore? It does to me.
And nowadays, not only do we have so many beauty tools, but we also have a beauty bible in the form of big screens and magazines. The beauty bible is ever-changing, and it's not very kind. It presents, and not politely: air-brushed, well-detailed, mostly unrealistic beauty idols for us to emulate, whether we want to or not. We either work hard to fit in with these beauty idols of the media beauty bible, or we dismiss them and accept our fate as less-thans.
But even if we mostly dismiss the ongoing media-beauty bibles and live as independently as possible of them, in our only-sometimes-beautiful selves, we still live in a society that is permeated by them, and we still know that we are "supposed to" be gorgeous.
Well, I had a good laugh the other night.
I had to buy my husband a new dress shirt on my way home from the pool. So we stopped in at Ross.
I'd been swimming with my kids and their cousins at the PG pool all day. So my face was dried out, chlorinated, a little sunburned, and makeup-free. My hair was in a sticking-out ponytail with half of it fallen out, and with strange spikes of bangs going at odd angles. In a mirror of a dressing room of Ross, baby in my arms, I saw my reflection in the mirror with a sudden mixture of horror and humor.
Then I dropped the horror and just laughed. This had been a great day, a happy day, a fun day, and it showed. It had been the baby's first time in an outdoor pool. We'd all had a great time. If the cameras had been rolling, it wouldn't have mattered to me.
I am happy that at this point in my forty one years of life, image is becoming so much less important, while inner beauties and true joy are becoming more real.
So many of the best moments and days in life ain't pretty.
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