Unmade...

Fourth grade boys chase girls.

Hence, I spent most of the 4th grade running in large circles around the playground with a group of five or six girls who had innocently, yet proudly, dubbed themselves “The Cool Kids”.

Boys, being male, even in the 4th grade, found themselves strangely attracted to this group of girls with nothing to recommend them besides the braces their parents’ income had lovingly screwed onto their teeth, and a cool club name.

By the 5th grade, the boys had ceased their chasing, and had, instead, begun to study these strange creatures in an effort to understand what it was they had been chasing, in the first place. This reticence on the part of “older” boys is, in my opinion, what forces girls to resort to plan B. In my case, this involved make-up.

A couple of years ago, as I sat in the lobby of a big box restaurant, waiting for my sisters to join me for our monthly “sister’s day”, I was shocked, and admittedly fascinated, by the sight of a child no older than six parading back and forth in front of me, in full, glittering make-up, skin-tight blue jeans, and high heels. She held a fancy cellphone between her delicate, manicured fingers as she chatted with a friend while waiting for a table by pacing the clay tiles under our feet.

This was not my reality. In my time, a simpler time, mothers didn’t allow their girls to paint their prepubescent faces. But girls, being girls, are always able to find a way around an obstacle as simple as parental restrictions. My friend, Melody, and I scratched and saved to buy apple-green or sky-blue eyeshadow, and tubes of sticky, roll-on, fruit-flavored, lip-gloss that we then hid away inside our newly acquired and ever-present purses.

We left home pure, and freshly-scrubbed, and before the first bell sounded, we had completed yet another masterpiece. We raced towards homeroom, batting green and blue eyelids at one another, secure in the knowledge that we were cunning, and smart, and worldly, and beautiful!

I’ve since lost track of Melody. But, I know that wherever she is, she is painted. I know this, because I am.

Or, I was.

“Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day…”

As I finished dressing, I swallowed the handful of herbs and vitamins that constitute breakfast and reached below the vanity for my paintbox. Half bent, in full swing, I caught my image in the large mirror over the sink. I rose, slowly, and looked; really looked. And, I made a decision.

I closed the cabinet beneath the sink with a decided thud, turned out my bedside lamp, and left the bedroom, unpainted.

Today is the fourth day in a row that I have taken on the world clean-faced. Today is also the first day I began to wonder, “Why?”.

My wardrobe remains unchanged. It occurs to me that my middle-aged, unpainted face and wild, unkempt hair, may appear incongruous above my Vera Wang blouse, pencil skirt, and stiletto heels.

So, why?

As I walked into the office this morning, I had regained my spring…and my smile, sans lipstick. As I talked with clients, my leg still swung irreverently beneath the desk in time to our banter, and I worked it, sans mascara. All day, without the mask, I’ve felt strangely attractive and wild; more so than in a very long time….

Many different answers have pinged against the sides of my head since the question was asked:

I work in an office replete with people I have known for most of my life, most of whom come to work every day wearing the face God gave them. Why bother?

I subscribe to a blog, in which the writer presents herself fresh from sleep every morning. I am inspired by these images; their raw honesty, their bravery, and their beauty.

I am raw. I am fresh. I am coming clean. I am starting over.

I am happy.

© Copyright 2007-2008 Stacye Carroll