About a year ago, comments were made about my appearance, and the person I was at the time was not strong enough to decipher whose opinion mattered and whose didn’t matter. To my younger self, let me tell you where those people ended up: probably onto bigger and better things but one thing’s for sure, they’re not a part of your life.
To bring context to this situation, I started experimenting with makeup the summer of sophomore year, coincidentally during the pandemic when most of my days consisted of me being at home. I dabbled with eyeliner and eyebrow pencils initially, but my interest with makeup grew to include blush, contour and foundation. I found a way to express myself through makeup whether it be choosing a certain blush or changing the styling of my eyeliner. However, people began to talk about my appearance. At the time, I took their hurtful words as the truth, and I couldn’t perceive myself without considering how others felt about me.
____________________
After cold shower:
Not to say that I completely have control over my emotions now, but I have learned to prioritize my views over anyone else’s. At the end of the day, no one has been with me for as long as I have been with myself. Even when I tried to change my appearance to please everyone else, it didn’t change the sentiments behind their comments. If it wasn’t “she wears too much makeup,” it became “what’s wrong with her? She should put makeup on.” Through and through, the sentiments behind both statements were the same; both were expressions of insensitive jokes intended to humor people at my expense. It took a while for me to realize there will always be one person who will judge me for anything and everything I do, but once I did it became easier to drown their opinions out. And, as mentioned prior, the people who have made comments about me, they may possibly be onto bigger and better things. However, they are no longer a part of my life. They don’t know me like I know myself, so they’re unqualified to insensitively criticize me.
______________________
Reflection:
Taking a cold shower altered the experience I had with writing. In the beginning, I definitely was more particular about what I wrote. I really thought the structure of my response through, but I also tried to be very descriptive with my experience. This includes listing the different makeup I wore and listing the different makeup aspects that helped me express myself. However, after taking a cold shower, I became more focused on the event itself. Instead of going on a tangent and providing context to my journey with makeup, I went straight into what people said, how it made me feel, and what I began to realize. On my part, I see more directness in my writing after taking a shower. I see this directness in the form of not sugarcoating how I felt about people’s comments: I thought they were insensitive jokes that were intended to make people laugh at my expense.