I Live Tweeted One Day Without Makeup and It Was Definitely NOT What I Expected

I’d like to tell you that me going makeup-free for a day was a premeditated, feminist experiment on the female experience about literally putting on a face, about identity, and freedom of self-expression.

But I can’t.

I was running late for work and decided that doing my hair was a higher priority since it was 9 degrees this morning, and I didn’t feel like having popsicle hair — or pneumonia.

So I did something I’d never done before — I went to work without makeup on. I didn’t even take backup in case I completely chickened out.

Oh, and since I’m a millennial, the obvious course of action was to live tweet my experiences.

Really, I went in expecting the worst.

After this selfie was taken was when things got weird.

And by weird — I mean the complete opposite of my expectations.

Nothing happened. Nothing.

Now, I’ve read a lot of “No Makeup Day/Week/Month” blog posts, profiles, and think pieces. This is not how it was supposed to go.

Usually, they start with the heroine describing her expectations of vulnerability and exposure to peers and strangers. Then, we move into the “unexpected people notice I look different/better/natural” phase. Throw in some body-positive self-reflection with some anti-makeup establishment feminist empowerment, and you’ve got 10,000 shares on Facebook.

You know what happened after no one noticed? I went on with my day.

There wasn’t a moment of enlightenment where I realized that I can be true self without putting on a face or where I realized that I’ve been hiding my insecurities behind Almay foundation and Covergirl mascara.

Backing up — I’ve struggled with low self-esteem for as long as I can remember, but over the past 5 years, I’ve made a conscious effort to get comfortable in my own skin. For me, that means loving this amazing, God-given body of mine no matter what size on the jean tag or number on the scale, no matter the hair on my face, no matter my blotchy red skin and enlarged pores.

Today after nothing happened, I felt peace.

Today, marked the culmination of years of working on my mind and spirit to be happy with me.

Today, it wasn’t that no one noticed that I looked slightly different than usual, it was that I didn’t care if they noticed or not.

I was — am — at peace with me.

I didn’t plan on today being the day I finally felt completely content just being me. But I guess we can’t plan these things. They just happen.

I fully expected to do this little experiment and write about the superficial expectations placed on women in our society and the pressures of performing feminine identity in a patriarchal society. Or even about the negative comments women make to other women who they perceive as not performing the part of “woman” well enough.

Rest assured, those are very real experiences, and they deserve all the likes and shares and think pieces so that we can create meaningful dialogue.

But I firmly believe in the power of telling the an individual’s story to inform the larger human experience.

It took me 5 years to get to a place where I’m happy with me just as I am.

I don’t know where you are on your journey of self-acceptance, but I pray that my story encourages you on yours.

A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.

— Graham Green

Thanks for reading part of my story, will you tell me part of yours?