You’re Put Together

Putting on make-up during quarantine and during this pandemic has become few and far between for me. In the beginning it was the sheer excitement of wearing pj pants all day and even when in Microsoft TEAMs meetings. No one sees you waist down. It doesn’t matter. I can be wearing obnoxious stripped pj pants or clearance men’s pj pants sporting cute hunting dogs. My feet are cozy in their fuzzy purple socks. No….one….knows! I had found my comfort in my new waist-down attire and make-up slowly became scarce. Why even apply it anymore?  I was getting used to looking in the mirror with a reflection of just me. I joked how my skin is loving this! I am not smearing foundation on my face and clogging my pores. My eyes looked bright and at the forefront when I pulled my hair back into a pony tail. Pony tails became my new thing! My hair is out of my face and pulled back. I feel cooler and it is so low maintenance! Awesome! My daughter was doing the same thing. Well, she has never really worn make-up much. She doesn’t need it. She pulls her hair up daily in a messy bun that looks super cute or a high-up pony tail. She doesn’t apply anything to her face and she looks bright and cheery! I thought I was in the same boat and doing the same thing. We were two peas in a pod.  We were both sitting in the same boat and rowing our way through low-key and carefree quarantine! Why go back?

Because I am in my mid-forties that is why! Unfortunately we are not in the same boat. My daughter is sitting in the boat with the breeze in her hair as I clutch the boat to pull myself out of the water looking like a drown rat.  I don’t have the same glow as I did in my early twenties. My skin is not as flawless as it used to be. I have wrinkles for gosh sakes. If we don’t laugh we cry. Well, I have been doing lots of laughing and my laugh lines are giggling it up! Make-up is a good thing! It hides time. Quarantine does funny things to you. You lose your sense of reality! My new reality of pale and looking tired and stretchy pants, was freaking me out a bit. So I took control this week and put some foundation on. I brushed on some highlighter. I put some shimmer on my eyes and some mascara. I looked alive again. I looked awake! Now I have to admit that my hair made it’s way into another ponytail that same day. I got hot again! Well, I have been hot and cold and sweaty and freezing and melting. Yep. Welcome to the forties! But my husband was looking at me all day. He even came up to me and kissed me and pinched my cheeks. At one point in the day when he was looking strangely at me yet again, I put my hands on my face and looked at him. “What is wrong?”  He stood before me and told me that it looked like I had put myself together today. I wasn’t angry. I just laughed. I laughed as I playfully slapped him on the shoulder. Yep. I had put myself together. 

Does it mean that I will not be wearing my doggie pj pants one day or consecutive days during the week? Nope. You just won’t know. I will take some time though to brighten my face with a little help of beauty products since I don’t have the natural glow of “young.” I will definitely have days I am not quite put together. There will be days that I just don’t have the energy to put my face together and I will continue on with a little dry shampoo and chapstick and my fuzzy socks and striped pj pants. I can’t guarantee that my make-up will stay put all day. I will have days that I start off bright and cherry with a fresh coat of make-up and end with my hair tied up in a crooked ponytail and my eyeshadow gone because it just melted off.  It took me some time to realize that I was the only one hot in the room and the excessive fanning of myself was just a result of a hot flash. But they do leave me quite flushed and my cheeks quite rosy. But what I will know is that on the days that my husband keeps looking at me funny, that I must have put myself together that day.