Makeup: to cover more than just your spots…

It looks pretty, colorful, shimmery, glossy. It promises to make you look good, and love you back if you do. It won’t break your heart, it won’t say mean things to you, it won’t make you feel bad. It fits you, no matter what size you are. It doesn’t discriminate – No! Not You! You are not pretty / thin / smart / fair / dusky / intelligent / deserving / kind enough, put me back! – it never says this.

Makeup sometimes is more than just some colored cream or powder that you buy to cover a spot on your face, sometimes it is the balm you need to conceal the hurt, bitterness, pain or emptiness that scar your days.

It is easier to obsess & fantasize over your next trip & purchase than face the reality. Also known as retail therapy.  It does work pretty well at times. Until someone points out or worse, objects to your craziness.

Of course, you get mad. Caught between feeling guilty for blowing up money on what people think are “useless things” and defending your behavior, you wonder how to explain to them what it “really” does for you. How do you explain that how the world seems perfect, even if it is just for a few moments, when you live that way? How do you explain that you are not strong enough yet to face your issues? What really troubles you…

Sometimes you don’t want to address those issues, because there are no answers to them. No solutions. Sometimes you don’t even know what it is, but you know enough that you don’t want to scratch the surface.

It is easier to analyze a product for its pros & cons, than life. Your friends reach out to you only when they want to unload their burdens, their sorrows. But you somehow can’t do it. You unload to the waterproof mascara adorning your lashes, and hope it will support you and stay on when the tears flow. Because they will, it is only a matter of when & where.

Some people resort to drinking to forget their sorrows, some do drugs, some string in & out of relationships faster than your grandmom knits, some work 14 hours a day wishing that their life made as much sense as that excel spreadsheets. But some of us buy makeup / shoes / clothes in the hope that at least our outside can be a pretty shimmery pink, even if the inside of us is a muddled grey.

When I shop, the world gets better, and the world is better, but then it's not, and I need to do it again. - Rebecca Bloomwood (Confessions of a Shopaholic)

PS: I’ve been there, when I was working with a boss who I hated more than I have hated any living person, it was at its peak. I also have issues from childhood, having been a victim of abuse and I'm also dyslexic, so I have plenty of baggage.

I don’t do it anymore. At least not 99% of the time. I have my grumpy days, but I don’t *have* to do it as much now. It hasn’t been easy, still is tough at times. But if any of you are here, know that you will get through. It will pass. And if you need support, you can reach out to me on gtalk.