The saying goes that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Well, beauty and I have had a touch-and-go relationship. I’ve longed for it like a soap opera character yearns for her first love who is conveniently married or engaged to someone else. There is an urgency to meld myself into what beauty standards ("the beholders," if you will) ask of me and to change until I fit while knowing the truth, which is that I will never fit. Beauty standards are ableist, and I have a disability — you can do the math. I never thought I was beautiful. I never saw myself as worthy of beauty or love or anything remotely good. However, there has always been one thing that softened the blow, and that is lipstick.
[post_ads]I’ve loved lipstick for as long as I can remember. I’ve always thought there was something majestic about it. Lipstick was a sign of maturity, attractiveness, and a sense of self. Growing up, my mother didn’t wear lipstick all the time, but I would watch her apply it when we were going somewhere she felt warranted it. I would watch in awe desperate to feel the confidence and control I was projecting onto her. I didn’t know who I was — I just knew that I didn’t like anything I had to offer physically due to my cerebral palsy.When the moment came for lip-glosses and the leap into preteen life, I jumped for joy.
Like most of us '90s kids, I lived and died by the Lip Smackers glosses, and could apply them with ease. You know, the ones with the flavors that you secretly licked off your lips and found the taste of your hair because it was always sticking to the gloss on the other side? Yeah, those. After Lip Smackers came whatever I could convince my mother to buy from the dollar section. They weren’t the kind of flavors you could lick off your lips. They were lip glosses with shade names like "Cutie" and "Babe," the kind that felt almost too important to lick.
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I bought my first lipstick in high school with money I saved in a bag I kept between mattresses. The name escapes me but the color was a bright red. I carried it with me like a badge of honor in my purse though I never dared to wear it. I wasn’t ready yet, I hadn’t become a person who "earned" lipstick, so it sat in my purse until I eventually tossed it away when the purse started to wear down.
I bought another my sophomore year of high school. I felt worthy of this one, though I still didn’t feel worthy of anything else. The first time I wore it was in my room with the door shut, where I applied it the way I watched my mother apply it years earlier but with the lack of that special precision which only comes from practice. I felt powerful, invincible like I could take on the world and come out on the other side. The feeling didn’t last long and I removed it in anger and shame. I felt I didn’t deserve it.
As I grew older, I stopped treating lipstick like a thing I didn’t deserve and couldn’t obtain, just like the actual feeling of being beautiful. Lipstick became a reward. If I did great on a test or do something kind for a friend, I would go home and put it on relishing in the fact that I earned it.
From that point on, I would wear lipstick after I earned it. I would wear it at college house parties and after finals, college graduation and after every essay acceptance. I’ve gotten better at the application of lipstick that came with practice and patience that I didn’t know I possessed. Lipstick is the only thing that I can apply without help. The one allowance my cerebral palsy has granted me for now anyway. If I want a full face done, I can ask my twin sister, Leah, for help. But I always relish in the ability to do my lipstick, this one thing, on my own.
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The truth is that my lipsticks, in all of their beautiful red hues, have been my safe haven. They have felt like armor even when I felt too scared to wear it, even when I felt I wasn’t worthy of it. Now that I finally feel good about the person that I am and the body that I am in, I find myself wearing them whenever I want to. No rewards system necessary.
These days, I’m branching out to brighter and bolder colors too. I have a makeup bag full of red lipsticks but now, I want to buy black, blue, pink, and brown lipstick. I’d love one for every color of the rainbow, one for every day I spent depriving myself of the joy of lipsticks. The saying goes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder — and now I am the beholder, and I see the beauty that I possess.
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I bought another my sophomore year of high school. I felt worthy of this one, though I still didn’t feel worthy of anything else. The first time I wore it was in my room with the door shut, where I applied it the way I watched my mother apply it years earlier but with the lack of that special precision which only comes from practice. I felt powerful, invincible like I could take on the world and come out on the other side. The feeling didn’t last long and I removed it in anger and shame. I felt I didn’t deserve it.
From that point on, I would wear lipstick after I earned it. I would wear it at college house parties and after finals, college graduation and after every essay acceptance. I’ve gotten better at the application of lipstick that came with practice and patience that I didn’t know I possessed. Lipstick is the only thing that I can apply without help. The one allowance my cerebral palsy has granted me for now anyway. If I want a full face done, I can ask my twin sister, Leah, for help. But I always relish in the ability to do my lipstick, this one thing, on my own.
[post_ads_2]
The truth is that my lipsticks, in all of their beautiful red hues, have been my safe haven. They have felt like armor even when I felt too scared to wear it, even when I felt I wasn’t worthy of it. Now that I finally feel good about the person that I am and the body that I am in, I find myself wearing them whenever I want to. No rewards system necessary.
These days, I’m branching out to brighter and bolder colors too. I have a makeup bag full of red lipsticks but now, I want to buy black, blue, pink, and brown lipstick. I’d love one for every color of the rainbow, one for every day I spent depriving myself of the joy of lipsticks. The saying goes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder — and now I am the beholder, and I see the beauty that I possess.
Related:
