On Vanity and Girling Up

I have spent a lifetime being pretty unconcerned about my appearance in many ways.  I really never "girled up" very much.  I have had a few short-lived phases when I focused on hair and clothing choices, but they never lasted and weren't big deals.  For the most part, I just wash and comb my hair, wear very little, if any, makeup (for the past decade the most makeup I'd wear is possibly mascara and lip gloss most of the time), and my clothing has been whatever was clean and had the least amount of wrinkles.  I really didn't care.

Lately, though, I'm getting more and more interested in my appearance, and web surfing time is including product searches on moisturizers and night creams and makeup and other girly things!  And since I've been spending more time looking at my face, (applying these creams, etc.)  I have just noticed something that's REALLY bothering me!

When I was 14 or 15, I got in a kind of bad car accident.  My brother hit a soft shoulder and the car spun off the road and hit a tree - exactly in the spot where I was sitting in the back seat.  Fortunately, my window was up so instead of my head hitting the tree, it went through the glass and I apparently fell back into the back seat, with a face of embedded shards of glass.  A few spots required 1, 2 or 3 stitches around my forehead, right eye, and right side of my face.  They left scars, but I never really paid attention to them.

Until now.

One of them is in the corner of my right eye and the way it sits, it looks like a deep friggen wrinkle.  Well, it's NOT A WRINKLE!  I took a pic of it yesterday because I noticed it screaming to me while sitting in my car waiting to pick up my son.  

At 45, I've been told I look younger.  Whoever said that mustn't have been looking THERE at the time. lol  I know, I'm a goober.  Now, after a lifetime of not really caring about it, it matters to me.  I Googled and there's a product called Freeze247 that's supposed to help plump wrinkles out.  I wonder if it can fix this?

Meanwhile, I really am on a vanity kick like never before.  For the first time in my life I now own daily moisturizers and night creams and luxury bath bars and facial cleansers and "hair products."  And I'm kind of having fun with it, really.  I love the pampered feeling of the day and nightly regimens I've started.  I love the "girly" feeling of it.

The sad thing is how it's all tied to my weight and body image.  When I am heavy and not taking care of my food choices, my brain puts me into the category of "masculine."  I don't know why.  It always has.  When I'm not eating healthy, or exercising, or making good next right choices, everything falls apart, I don't WANT to look or act or be feminine and I don't WANT to attract attention.

On the other hand, as I increase the self care in the areas of eating right, exercising, hydration, etc., the femininity comes back out.  I hold my hands differently.  I want everything to smell good and girly.  I even girl up my house.  I break out the flowered, pretty sheets and softer blankets and robes, etc.  It's like I give myself permission to be feminine - to go there and know I am drawing attention back to myself.  

Part of this whole makeover is the hair, the makeup, the clothing, the accessories, etc. to go along with the emerging body and attitude - so, maybe I'm going to be a little vain for a while.  Or maybe, it's just that I finally care enough to try to really .... shine ... ?

It's a little scary, frankly.  It means I have to also get busy practicing good discernment, judgment and boundaries because not all the attention I will attract will be from healthy or kind people.  And I don't have a great history of telling the difference until it's difficult to detangle.  But I think I'm up for the challenge.  :-)

♥♥♥