Reclaiming My Face

I’m alone on Cape Cod this week. I am here to write for a week and I have a house and a beach and some woods to myself. It’s heaven. Every couple of years I get the chance to do this and each time it takes just 36 hours to drop down into a deep place, and everything else falls away. And that includes caring about how I look.

A few years ago I was on a month-long writing retreat. I lived in a barn with a bedroom and an art studio and I didn’t care about clothes or hair or even bathing. I didn’t wear any make up for a month and I liked how I looked. But at the end of 30 days I began to wonder if I could go back into my “normal” world without make up?

I think about that now. What is the difference between this face I like on retreat and my discomfort with this same face in my other life?

In early recovery I used to wonder in any new situation, “Who do I go as?” The question was tribute to my years of people pleasing. A breakthrough moment was the day that it came to me that, “I can go as me.” There was a “me” there!

As I packed to leave the retreat I began to ask, Can I go another week without make up? Can I go 21 days? I wanted make up to be a choice and not something that I have to do. If I can be in the world without make up then make up can be a choice. Can I use makeup but not be defined by it?

When I talked to my sponsor I said, “I think I’m reclaiming my face”.

If this is what I really look like, I don’t want to hide that --especially from myself. I don’t want to be afraid of my own face.

It’s timing of course. Many of us admire the freedom of appearance of someone like Georgia O’Keefe but most of us admire her 90-year-old, desert-artist face. Yes, I may be willing to look like a chic, elegantly wrinkled woman when I’m 90, but what about at 57 and 67 and 77? The face we fret over most is the getting-old face rather than the being-old face.

Maybe this reclaiming of my face is reclaiming of my mortality. If I change the appearance of my face does that change what is inside? Face-lifts might make us look younger but they don’t make us be younger. Botox may make us look less worried but it doesn’t make us less worried, it simply disguises an even greater worry. 

My Face

Another gift from my week in Florida when I had no cosmetics. I felt so strange at first then I realized that my husband kept looking just like himself but when I looked in the mirror I looked so different.

So I decided to go without makeup for a week after I came home. I became my own experiment and my own work of art. I also decided to not talk about what I was doing. No explanations. I saw people looking at me; some asked if I was tired. I said “No”, but decided to not talk away the experience. My husband—smart man—did not ask. And I didn’t tell.

It is freeing. I love makeup and being a girly girl but I realized in my cosmetic-free week that I want make-up to be a choice. I don’t want to be afraid of my face or ashamed of my face. I want make-up to be decoration and not a mandate or a mask.

Facing the World with My Real Face

I was at a retreat on the weekend and as happens when I have these times away I wore no makeup for three days. Day one I think I look tried or strange but by day three I think I look pretty and natural. I come home and decide to leave the make up off for a few more days. That feels more risky at work and in the day to day life in city and suburbs especially with people who know my made-up face better. Several people tell me I look tired even though I am more rested than usual. Concealer and mascara really do make a difference. But I want to know I can face the world with my real face so I go more days with no make up.

Can I face the world with my real face? Can I allow make up to be an option, an accessory that is not required? Can it be a choice and not a mask? I want to dress as me and show my real face to the world. Leaving make up off one day at a time is an experiment in facing the world.