I never grew up with make-up and I thought it was something I wouldn’t be interested in. I didn’t think of myself as ‘one of the boys,’ but I also didn’t think I could be as pretty as the girls that I saw in magazines and in my favorite TV shows.
I stared in the mirror, clothes on, watch ticking, asking myself “what is missing? Why does this feel incomplete?” I change my outfit a thousand times more and I’m perpetually running late.
My boyish figure and broad shoulders hold my head high and my jaw strong but something will always feel missing. Something will always feel asymmetrical about me and that will have to be okay.
When I turned 21, I found mascara at Target that I had to have. I wanted to change the way I looked by doing something that wasn’t dying my hair or another tattoo. I wanted something that would be an everyday thing that I could wear whenever.
Now’s the time I sit in front of my mirror and really question whether or not this is the right thing. Whether it’s true to myself, what I really want to look like. I know that mascara’s a minor detail but make-up is an entire country and this mascara is my passport.
I blink slowly,rub my lashes along the brush and realize how defined they look. I think to myself “I like the way this is playing out.” I like the way that I finally see my long lashes. The tube says ‘voluminous,’ but I needed to see it to believe it.
The other eye has consequences of a streak across my nose. I wasn’t aware of the entire wand being submerged in the waterproof paint, yet I quickly swiped it away and began second guessing as I blinked once more.
Voluminous, voluminous, voluminous.
This is the gateway to exploring my presentation and change is meant to be uncomfortable because I’ve never seen this side of myself before. A change in the queue, forever repeating.