Month: March 2015

Makeup costs a ton. Like a lot.

I am not rich, I’m not poor, maybe I’m somewhere in between. But makeup costs an arm and a leg. There are definitely cheaper alternatives, but to get good quality, less chemicals, and what not, is expensive!

I look online all the time and I’m just like, how could I even buy this?

I am pretty happy with the collection I have, and in the process of replacing items with better quality products with less harmful chemicals, but still.

I look at some products I’ve tried in the past and wondered, what I was thinking.

But let’s face it, it’s a business. The business surrounds itself with advertising and the media which tell people, in the form of magazines and ads, what products we ‘need’ to be ‘beautiful’.

I have no idea how much of this has filtered into my mind, but I can’t deny that it hasn’t. I grew up surrounded by this.

There are days when I don’t wear a lot of makeup, and it makes me happy. But it honestly makes me happy to play around with makeup, to try new things, and experiment. For example, I love lip products. I have more of this than anything else, because I love changing it, even in the same day. I love bright reds, berries, and now am branching into different colors. It’s my favorite thing. I would wear just that and be so happy.

I can honestly say that I feel a lot differently about makeup now than I do. I used to feel like I was not as pretty until I put some on, that I needed to have some to have respect. But now I feel better about minimal looks with statement features. I am getting a lot better about buying less makeup and about my own self image. I still get pretty self-conscious, but I am getting a whole heck better.

I’ve also started trying to declutter, if I try something and don’t like it, move on. I want to be smart about my choices. Choose things that are new that I don’t have, or replace old things.

I am getting a lot better at it.

I am going to do a series of posts, starting today, of certain topics relating to myself and make up. Just thought I’d put that out there and give this week a cute little title.

When I was walking the other day, I was asked: Well what do you really ever truly know? And for a lot of things, I really second guessed what I thought I knew, but I wanted to try to start with the things I really honestly knew, without any doubt.

I am sure with enough time I could come up with a ton of other lists or things, but the first thing I thought of was:

I know, with 100 percent certainty, no doubt, that my parents love me, support me, and would do anything for me that they could.

There was, at that moment, nothing clearer or more firm. Because even hours later, days later, weeks later, I still know that one things in my mind. In fact, every day so far in my gratitude journal, I have been writing my parents. The effects of their love and support have helped me be the person I am today.

There are a lot of things I know, but there aren’t as many things that I would bet my life on. There are things I know are true. But I would bet anything I have in the world on my parents.

This isn’t to say that I don’t know other things with certainty, but this is the first I thought of.

I recently saw this article on facebook concerning Diane Sawyer’s marriage advice.

And this quote really stuck with me.

“I learned something great on one of the stories I did,” she says. “Someone said to me… ‘A criticism is just a really bad way of making a request. So why don’t you just make the request? Why don’t you just say, Could we work out this thing that makes me feel this way?'”

Because it’s pretty true. When I criticize I most definitely want something to change. If I say, hypothetically, “you’re a slob” then I am basically saying, please pick up around here.

I am not the best person with blame. I am one of those people who are quickly angry and often blame others in the process.

I am trying to get a lot better at this, but let’s just admit that it’s a pretty steep hill to climb up.

I’m trying, when I’m angry to take a step back and consider a lot of things:

1) why am I really angry

2) are there underlying issues underneath

3) how can I fix this

I find after considering number one, a lot of the blame is gone. There are times when there is legitimate blame, but sometimes it’s just I’m upset about something, that may be their fault, but haven’t said it yet. Which leads me to number two when I realize that maybe this regards a deeper feeling I’ve been feeling or hiding or something I never even knew existed. That’s the biggest revelation in my process. How when I take the time to do this process, I realize things I didn’t even realize bothered me or was upset about. Then when I get to number three, I usually have a request instead, or a “knowing this, can we fix it?”

I realize it’s a better process, and after my quick temper, I go through these three, but I have to learn to count before I raise my voice.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to be less quick tempered, because sometimes I feel like the only time I could do that was if I was one of those super serene monks and I can’t see myself doing that. But I am trying.

Which has to count for something.

 

I wish that I could get all the people I love to take a survey of all the things they see about me. I feel like I get so caught up in how I see myself, that I would want to see how others see me. How they see me, how they see my image, what they perceive as flaws. I am so interested in this that I’ve thought about logistics about how I could get this done.

I watched a video on the internet about dealing with haters and criticism. They saw them as a critique and a way to possibly be better. To use the criticism, decide if they want to address it, or ignore it. I kind of want to do that, except I definitely don’t have the amount of guts she has. I am also a pretty mushy soft feely person. I take a lot of things personally and what not. But maybe that’s also a flaw people would say?

I am so intrigued. If I can ever find a way to do it, you will most certainly get an email from me.

Don’t you ever wonder about this? And I can’t think of any other people who I would value their opinions more. I know I’m not perfect, but I want to be better. I want to always try to be more. I realize I have flaws: I am so impatient, I have a quick temper. But I want to know if there’s more, no matter how small that I’m being blind to.

Just know you can always email me and let me know. I would appreciate the feedback.

Am I the only one? Maybe people would argue that the best way to do this would be to reflect alone and not be swayed by what others think. But I can be the most perfect person in my head, but being a good person is reflected in how I treat people.

 

It’s funny how there are just things that are not re-creatable.

Case in point: my mom’s eggs.

I have tried countless times to make the same, or make them better (which I have learned by now is impossible), but it’s only mom who knows how to make them moist, but dry. She has the perfect form and I’m sure even if she helped me learn, but it wouldn’t be the same.

Because there are just some things that stay as they are. They cannot be improved. So what happens? I just don’t eat scrambled eggs.

I’m not saying this as a sob story, I’m just reflecting on the way that some food, no matter what, can never be recreated.

Those beautiful, warm, moist, dry eggs are, and will always, be the best when, and only when, my mom makes them.

My mom did a lot of cooking and baking, so she’s pretty emblematic of food for me, eating, cooking, smelling, seeing. And lots of times I get by, I make quiches, I make cupcakes, and they’re fine alternatives. But these eggs, there is no replacement.

I guess it doesn’t help that I firmly believe there will never be a replacement (a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy huh?) but it is indeed what I believe.

And it’s what I want as well. Who cares I can’t really eat others eggs? (Although I have had some great eggs in the past, especially in Boston) they were fancy eggs, they weren’t every morning eggs for me. They didn’t come on oval plates. So I can eat eggs, just to clarify.

But for nostalgia sake they don’t compare to those plain eggs. But it’s okay with me. It’s okay for me not to try, because I know that it’s how I want it to be.

The eggs from my mom are the best because she pours all the love she has for me into them, she always has.

And that’s the best way I will ever be able to express it.

I love my mom’s scrambled eggs.

Everyone knows this. Whether it be romantic or not. They are totally just work. Don’t get me wrong, there’s fun and laughter and hope and all these things in between, but they don’t exist without work.

It takes work to make relationships…well, work. It takes listening to people’s complaints, arguing, and time to bond. It takes time to connect with someone. There are instant connections, but even to develop them takes work.

There’s this whole social dance of social engagement. Work to figure out when to ask someone out, what their vocal cues mean, where to go, what impression to give off. It takes work to decode this, like a translation.

But there’s the hard, sweaty, tearstained grit of the work. And sometimes, it just doesn’t work out. It’s totally hard and sometimes I want to give up. Work is hard, but nothing of worth happens easily. Even things that come easily, don’t stay easily. It takes effort and work to get something good, something great, something phenomenal from it.

And it’s okay to not. It’s okay to let it go. It’s okay to say, “hey, this work isn’t worth it”

But there’s just this conception with these ‘fairy tale romances’ where once the ‘love connection’ happens, it all just sort of falls into place. What happens to people once the story ends? Once the credits roll?

The work begins.

I wonder if people just want to leave behind a mark or something of themselves for the future. I wonder if people want to just have been part of something, something larger than themselves, a bit of history in the making.

Maybe we all just want to leave a mark. I kind of already thought that that is what we want, to make a mark, an impression, a marker that we were there, that the world saw us. It’s like a recognition of our life, our work, our hours on this Earth. A small ripple our life left behind, left for all of time, faint, but unmistakably there. Almost like a little part of our self remains long after we are gone, an impression of our hand in the sand.

We all did that, didn’t we? Make footprints in the sand and watch as the ocean washed them away. That is the impermanence of life, but don’t we all kind of want there to be a remnant of our presence? A sign that we were there?

That’s kind of why I love used books, to me, you can’t read a book without leaving some sort of sign: the way you mark a page, the way you bent the book when it lay in your bag, the way the edges are worn from the shelf, or the smell your perfume left when it leaked a little. We leave parts of ourselves behind in our books, our marks, our tear stains. And that’s what I love about used books.

There are so many different ways this title can be taken. It can be never settling on a person, on a job, on a life, or on oneself.

For me, it’s a general not settling.

I definitely agree don’t settle on someone. If I can’t see myself with someone in the future, the effort and heart isn’t worth it. I am a long term person, I want to cultivate relationships for time. I don’t do short term, short term relationships, short term friends. I want to be the type of person people think, ” we’ve been friends for so long and will be for more”.

I haven’t settle on a job. I love to learn. I think that’s one of my first loves and I haven’t given up on it. While I may not know what I’m doing at all in the future, I know that it’s not worth it to settle. Life is too short to do something I don’t love or doesn’t make me happy. We only have our one life and while we can do a lot of good, it’s uniquely ours.

I have tried to do what I felt in my heart was the right thing, even if it wasn’t the east choice.

What I have the most problem with is accepting, well maybe it can’t be any better and I should just settle. Whether it be, these pants fit okay, so let’s try it. That’s what inspired this story. I found three pairs of pants that were 70 percent what I was looking for, and I thought, “maybe it doesn’t get better than that” and I bought them. But then I just found two pairs, less expensive, which were 100 percent what I wanted and was looking for. And now I have five pairs of pants, three which are now dwarfed by the coolness of my two that fit like a dream. And now I sit wondering, “what do I do with them now?”So, I guess, if it’s not what I want, don’t do it. There will be exceptions I’m sure, but for sure with clothing if it’s not what I want, a million people make clothes, so go find what you want.

I know the perfect fit when I find it.

I feel like there are all these things around me cluttering me. I don’t know how much of this is metaphorical or realistic, but I feel like I am surrounded by clutter. It feels almost as if I’m walking around pushing around little fogs bubbles.

It’s really inspired me to start clearing things out, moving things, and getting rid of things.

I don’t need all of these things, whether it be face washes, boxes, or regret. There’s just too much. It’s like I want to do all these things, but I can’t get through the mess to it. It’s not inspiring and it makes doing things more difficult.

But it’s about walking through and decluttering in order to move forward. Because we surround ourselves with things, and in the end, they just exist for so long, whether it to be until they get used up, or until we get used up. What is left of us will be our stuff. I don’t want to be saddled down or saddle anyone else down. When I go, I want the things behind to reflect me, in my true essential self, not a lot of things that don’t accurately reflect me. If I don’t love it, don’t want it. I want to surround myself with things that enrich my life.