Portrait in Linen

Sometime between high school and now, I stopped caring about how I look. Appearance and style gradually moved down the rungs of the Ladder of Priorities, until it was the furthest thing from my mind.

1. Will skip it today.
2. No time.
3. Not important.
4. Not turning out right.
5. Every attempt is a failed attempt.
6. Why try.

Attitudes followed.

1. He loves me just the way I am.
2. It’s called “au natural.”
3. I don’t want to find myself guilty of superficiality or gross vanity.
4. Style is a waste of time.
5. None of the styles these days appeals to me anyway; I do my own thing.

And I’ve been content, set in my own simple, bland, routines year after year, wanting nothing, missing nothing, happy to blend into the background if not wash away completely into the crowd of unremarkable extras in everyone else’s lives.

If I’ve been so content, why have I felt unhappy with the way I look? Why have I avoided the subject? Why do I tune out when conversation turns to clothes or hair or shoes or style? When, why did I stop caring?

I don’t know when or why or what changed, but a few weeks ago, I started caring again.

Maybe I woke up one morning and cracked open that door to the room of self-image, and I dared envision myself much different than I allowed myself to become. I decided, I wouldn’t act on impulse. I’d give myself time to think and get used to the idea of making an attempt before I’d go traipsing off to the stylist or the mall, throwing money into a swallowing pit of self-improvement. I decided I’d start slow–brainstorming.

I asked myself, “What would I change?” I came up with ten focal points.

‘Ailina’s 10 Focal Points for Change

1. hair
2. makeup
3. wardrobe
4. accessories
5. fragrances
6. nails
7. teeth
8. figure
9. preoccupations
10. hobbies

I hate to use the term “makeover,” because it brings to mind episodes of Oprah and intense shows on TLC and Lifetime. “Makeover” sounds sensationalized and melodramatic and silly. But honestly, that’s what I decided I’d do. A homegrown, Do-It-Myself makeover.

That was two weeks ago. Since then, I’ve already begun the process

(–and I must clarify: It is a process. Not like TV, when a women sits down in a chair, and various beauty professionals swarm her like crazed bees, and then they scatter, and there remains a transformed creature: shining and glamorous, a dazzling, perfected reincarnation of her former tired, tarnished, unremarkable self.

No, I believe rejuvenation and restoration will take time, like nourishing back to life a withered plant, or remodeling an outdated room, or sharpening one’s artistic skills after so many years of inactivity. And it will take more than a haircut and a new tube of lipstick.).

(Next: The Haircut)