So I live at home with my grandparents. I don't think I've mentioned that. It's the big family home where they and my dad live, and my sister when she comes home from college. My grandmother likes to buy expensive laundry machines and not let us do our own laundry. Super controlling person. I love her to death but she follows you around the house and offers you money like she thinks you don't have a job.
So sometimes my sister's laundry gets mixed up with mine, and it takes trying to fit those jeans on to realize it – she's always been smaller than me. I think we're both pretty but she's definitely the more mainstream version.
The other day I was going to get my jeans on and I realized they were my sister's, but I also realized that they were going on.
So like I've told you I'm not like fat or anything, I just have some extra padding – and most of it is in places I'm totally cool with. Like I outgrew my Triple D bras, but I can still wear form fitted jackets. Like I like how I look. But I've always wanted to get back to around 155 lbs. I weighed that much one summer and I felt really great about myself.
I'm only maybe 15, 20 lbs off that anyway so I'm pretty close. When I lived at home with my husband, I stress ate so much that I was constantly way heavier than I liked, but there weren't a lot of opportunities to talk about health considering the circumstances.
When I left and started going out with my boyfriend, all that weight started dropping off. Slowly but surely. My dad even noticed. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I see that my face isn't as round and it's getting a little more angular. Just a little bit.
And a couple days ago I fit into my sister's jeans. I mean I've tried getting them on before, but they never went over my hips. This time not only could I get them over my hips, they buttoned. I mean they were tight but they went on.
I'm really happy :) I've wanted to lose weight for a while, and I knew in my heart it wasn't my diet it was the stress. Not that I had it as bad as some people – I mean there was a lot that could have gone worse, and I need to remember that – but it was bad.
I'm keeping the jeans.
In the spirit of weight loss, I wanted to talk more about appearances. I did my makeup on the train today and I don't get a lot of strange looks like I might have when I was younger. But I was thinking about cosmetics and the beauty industry in general, and how when I was younger my family used to point out girls who wore makeup and shame them or say that they lacked confidence.
In retrospect, this was horrible.
I wear makeup for numerous reasons and I'm pretty sure I've gone over it, but just so you know; ever since I was little, I have been picking at my face. At first it was just a fascination with blackheads and I wanted them to be gone, so I would sit in front of the mirror for ages – sometimes an hour at a time – tearing holes in my face. When I was a kid I didn't realize what was happening, I just knew that it made me feel better. Everyone told me that this would only make my face worse, but I didn't see how that could be.
Fast forward ten years and I still pick, although a lot less frequently. It's a momentum thing – once I get going, I can't stop. But once I'm stopped, I can keep myself from going. I've tried everything but drugging myself, which everyone in my life says is a good idea. Maybe it's the fact that my brother killed himself that makes me unlikely to ever want to take meds. Even for a headache, I always try to figure out why it's happening and fix the dehydration or hunger or aching.
When I discovered skincare, that started to help with my problem, but I noticed that no matter how good I was, the picking was what set me back. When I discovered cosmetics, I saw it as a tool to keep me from picking.
See, with a moisturizer, it'll settle into your skin and you can forget it's there. But with foundation, if you put your hand on your face it comes away creamy and then you've made a hand print on your skin where everyone can see. So I treat my skin with my serum, and then I wear cosmetics to make sure I don't touch it.
I also wear cosmetics because they make me prettier. Newsflash; cosmetics make you prettier. Unless you do them very wrong. Boys will say they prefer girls without makeup, but that typically means that they have too many exes who wore it and those bitches be crazy. Or they found them too vain. Or the girls didn't know the time and place for makeup and wore it always and it got in the way or all over the pillowcase.
It usually doesn't mean that they find girls who wear makeup uglier. Unless of course you're bad at it. Then you can look way uglier.
So my ex husband for example talked a lot about how he hated girls who wore makeup. When I started wearing makeup, he told me that the way I did it, he didn't mind so much. Right. Which means he's not against it in principal, he just had exes with poor execution.
My boyfriend always said he didn't mind it at all but didn't prefer it. Like he could go either way, and he likes it when I get all dolled up but it doesn't have to be a constant thing and he still thinks I'm pretty without it. I mean I'm okay looking without it. Like most guys would probably say a 5, 6 for my face. Including body I could be a 6 or a 7. And when I do my makeup and get dressed up I've hit 8, 8.5.
Objective here. I am familiar with beauty standards and know where I stand in relation to them. I really like these numbers. Statistically, I am above average, and that's the only place I like to make sure I exist.
My mother used to say that girls who wear makeup are insecure. Okay, maybe. I don't know that being insecure about your flaws is necessarily the end all of evil. It's good to recognize where improvements can be made. Honestly, the whole self-esteem movement of the 90's and 2000's seems pretty silly to me. Self-esteem isn't what we should be reaching for. Being aware of our faults and where we can better ourselves is far more valuable.
I think that's what I'll talk about next. The whole self-esteem thing.