As you know, my husband and I recently went on a two week vacation. Since we were camping the whole time, I made the decision to not bring any makeup along. Now, it’s not that I typically wear a ton of makeup but I definitely wear some form of makeup almost every day, so not wearing any for 2 weeks straight was kind of a big deal.
I am not a person who has been blessed with perfect skin. I’ve dealt with acne my whole life and even though it’s calmed down over the last few years, it’s still around enough to annoy me. I’m used to employing multiple makeup tricks to cover it up. But on this trip I had none. Now I was only seeing my husband and sleeping booty, so I knew it shouldnt be a big deal, but it still felt a little strange. I’m confident in my own skin most of the time, but when you take away your backup, something changes.
I guess you could say I felt naked(which I was in some sense of the word). The first week I wasn’t a huge fan of the way I felt. I knew I looked fine, but I didn’t feel beautiful. I still grumbled when I saw blemishes and thought to myself at least I won’t see any of these people again. But then, halfway through the trip my entire perspective changed, and it was all because of one picture.
We were in Bryce Canyon. If you’ve never been there, put it on your list right now. One of the coolest aspects of the canyon is the different colors of the rocks. We were passing a wall that was brilliantly red, and we decided it was the perfect backdrop for portraits of ourselves. The contrast with our skin was perfect. My husband pointed the camera at me and I just stared back, not even trying hard to smile. It was so simple but the result really suprised me. I looked at the photograph and I thought nothing else had ever been so purely me. There was no mask, no acting or reaching in my expression. I saw myself with no filter. And I thought, this is beautiful. I wasn’t focused on the imperfections, but the whole picture.
After that I was blissfully happy in my own skin. And when we finally got home from vacation, I was actually annoyed by the sight of all my makeup. I looked at it while getting ready for work and thought how pointless the effort of putting it on would be. I’ve actually only used makeup a couple times since coming home. My mindset has totally changed. I see my blemishes and just shrug them off. I don’t think makeup is bad or anything, and it can be fun to play with when you have a lot of time on your hands. But I suddenly don’t feel that I have a strong need for it anymore, and that makes me happy.
Yay! You are beautiful.