When I love my work, I go into hyper-speed. I forget to eat, I stop sleeping. And let me tell you, I haven’t been sleeping much lately.

I get in bed at 2 and lie there, just staring bliss into the darkness. I wake up hours before my 8:30 alarm. This is the first time in months that I’m able to wear my restlessness as a badge of honor again, an evidence of my great love for the job. It is metaphysical caffeine.

Days like this feel less like defense and more like patrol. I am fit and prepared, cruisin’ for a bruisin’. And so I put on my armor. I put on my makeup.

I dabble in novelty. Birchbox cartons and ipsy bags burst out of my drawers, samples heaped precariously in the bathroom. With oily skin like mine, every aberration from routine is a great gamble. New eyeliners often give me raccoon eyes, facial creams turn my cheeks into a Chevron station. Still, I’m enamored by the new. I’m always searching for something better, a fresh young thang to one-up an old classic.

But on my hyper-speed days, I do not deviate. I stick to my tried and trues, my warpaint. I go through the rituals and adorn myself. The comfort of my routine is comfort in myself—confidence in the classics, unfettered by new doo-dads.

This is when makeup moves from entertainment to power. An outward celebration of the potent holiness I feel in my bones. It’s a monsoon of joy and love, literally laid bare upon my face. Blue winged eyeliner, heavy blush, coral lips (but probably not all at once ;) ).

It’s sad to me that makeup is largely marketed as concealment, a bevy of unrealistic expectations. Hide your freckles. Make your face appear less round. Open your eyes up so you look like a barn owl. These are the messages I’ve received my whole life.

Adaptation is stunning. Taking something designed to keep you low and exerting dominance over it is the ultimate power. So though it’s presented as a series of masks to hide behind, I’ve come to love makeup.

As much as female fashion is edging into the man repeller camp with its sweatpants and coke bottle glasses, ladies in our generation are taking back makeup as a feat of declaration. What we put on our bodies becomes expression instead of puppetry to procure a husband.

Madonna has a great quote about power:

Power is being told you are not loved and not being destroyed by it

And at its best, this is what makeup is for me. It is my devout ceremony for showing up, freckles and all.