I am so proud of myself.

Last week I did sort of a “trial week” of makeup. You might’ve noticed from the pictures of me kissy-facing the camera and wearing eyeliner.

Well, let me give some backstory. When I was in sixth grade, I would have done anything to be labeled feminine. I tried pretty hard, but not hard enough. People who I used to be friends with passed me mean notes in class saying, “hey dyke!” and, “you’re a loner”. Comments from 99% of my class consisted of, “you look like a man” and “does your face hurt? no? well it’s hurting me.”

So I started trying to be feminine and work myself to pretty. I started plucking my eyebrows when I was 11, plucked them so thin you could hardly tell they were there. Then I drew over them in an attempt to make them look perfectly arched and defined. Then came the eyeliner - thicker every day. Within a year I was using up one stick of retractable eyeliner every 10 days. I never wore much lip gloss or lipstick, but if you’re friends with me on facebook, you might be able to catch a glimpse of how heavy my eyeliner used to get. It was ridiculous.

In ninth grade I would skip lunch and spend the entire period in the bathroom, fixing my makeup and waiting until I could go back in the halls, convinced I wasn’t pretty enough to socialize. Between sixth grade and twelfth grade, not one day went by that I didn’t wear makeup - at the very least eyeliner. It may not seem like a big deal, but I specifically remember having a “makeover party” with my friend Danielle. 

“Do you want purple eyeliner?” she asked.

“Well, I would, but I already wear black,” I replied as if her question was absurd.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s like, our base look.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Danielle and I believed that our BASE LOOK was an inch of eyeliner surrounding each eye in any direction. Base. Look. We couldn’t even imagine there being bare skin underneath it. In that case, we would be - gasp - ugly!

I was at a photography class downtown when I was about 14 or 15 and I remember a pretty, natural-faced girl leaning across the table and telling me, “You should get rid of that makeup. It kills your eyes.”

“No, it’s just my face,” I replied, totally offended. I vowed to myself to never take it off. I thought it made me pretty, even though I was not oblivious to the fact that still I wasn’t making friends.

In 10th grade I uploaded a makeup-less facebook picture with the caption, “I apologize in advance.” Friends commented telling me I was pretty even without eyeliner, but I didn’t believe it. I scoffed and returned to makeup the next morning. 

I stayed with a friend in California for several weeks in 2009 and, when leaving, on the drive to the LAX airport I realized I’d forgotten my makeup bag at my friend’s house. I was panicking, wringing my hands and hoping I’d be able to find makeup at the airport. It was an obsession. I knew how my makeup looked around my eyes without needing a mirror. I knew it was terrible, I knew my zits would show soon enough and my friends would see me as the ugly, manly sixth-grader I was inside.

We stayed in LA that night before our red eye flight in the morning and I found a Sephora on Hollywood Boulevard. I bought a $5 three inch eyeliner pencil (I hated the pencil kind, anyway) and prayed that my other friend who I was flying to Baltimore with would take me to a beauty store ASAP so I could get the rest of my essentials. I couldn’t wait for my California friend to send my makeup bag. Nope.

As soon as I got to Baltimore I demanded to go to a Sally Beauty’s Supply where I bought concealer and tweezers. Concealer and tweezers. For the one week I’d be there.

In twelfth grade, I started to realize I was being ridiculous. Petroleum oil around my eyes was not making me more beautiful. I tried uploading a youtube video without makeup, declaring to the Internet that I was going to stop wearing it. I cringed the whole time I edited it and played it back. I was back to eyeliner the next morning.

I’ve had one or two more spurts of “let’s try to go au natural!” in which I usually take a couple pictures, call it a day, and go back to makeup the next day. I started wearing even more, actually - lipstick and lipgloss and lipliner and lipeverythingyoucouldeverythinkof.

In my freshman year of college, I met some absolutely amazing people, my girlfriend Katie being the one closest to my heart. She never wore makeup, and yet she was radiantly gorgeous. My friends Olivia and Carina absolutely never wore makeup, and yet there I was with my makeup mask day in and day out. So I just stopped. One weekend in November, I just let the eyeliner fade with every shower. I couldn’t find any vegan makeup removers at the time, so it was easy to let it fade and see my face coming through, see my hazel eyes, so tiny without the black circles.

I didn’t wear makeup all through December, and so I decided I would do “No Makeup 2012”. I didn’t necessarily believe that I would not wear any makeup ever, but just that I was going to stop with the 24/7 eyeliner (I never ever took it off before bed). Now the most I do is chapstick and rare lipshine stuff. 

But I did it. Seeing my friends so naturally pretty and seeing so many girls around campus not bothering with makeup, I felt stupid wearing as much makeup as I did. So I left my makeup bag alone, although I’d still carry it around out of habit. And I went makeup free from December to today.

Last week I did a ~trial run~, where it was almost the opposite of what I used to do during my days of makeup obsession, where I’d attempt au natural. I tried to wear makeup. I’d forgotten how to even apply eyeliner when I used to be able to do it without a mirror. I felt like a drag queen. I felt pretty, but no prettier than I did than the last 10 months without makeup. I did it for a week, and I am so much more comfortable without it.

I can rub my eyes and not have smeared dirty hands, I can have conversations with people and not think, “what does my face look like? Is it decent?” 

I just don’t give a fuck anymore. My face is my face with or without being dolled up. And I am so proud of myself for being able to go back and forth without worry. 

You can still be beautiful, sexy, pretty, lovely, gorgeous, you can be YOU - without makeup.

taking sides

you and i
are on different sides
you try
to make your feet rhyme with mine
from all the way over there
every time i think about it
i just
wonder
why

you make friends and i don't

but then i remember that you don't

really like your friends anyway

and if there's one thing i've learned 

in these past few years

it's 

when you complain about someone 

you can't expect the listener

to like the someone

gloves

you're gonna have to wear gloves
to protect you from my storm.
you're gonna have to stand taller
to dance on my stage.
as long as you're feeling
my heart break in yours,
my words will hug each other
and teach you yours.

sophomore

I’ve felt so unlike a writer recently. Wondering if it’s the right life choice for me and everything. I’ve wanted to be an author since I was in elementary school, but then I decided it was more practical to aspire to become an editor or a publisher. Apparently that’s still not very logical, but it’s just that I’m not good at anything else. I really like proofreading and giving people feedback and if that’s not what earns me money, then… I guess I just won’t be rich and that’s all there is to it. I have no regrets so far about being an English major; I just want to be the best at it that I can be. And not slack off or anything like that. If I can accomplish that then I think I’ll be happy with myself. Even though I’ll be paying off college loans for the rest of my life. But isn’t that what so many other people do? I won’t be put off from education because of a ~dark looming future~.

I’m realizing that this reflects my philosophy on pretty much everything. “That’s just the way it is.” I’m very simple in that way. I didn’t really enjoy my sociology classes for that reason – I like learning about current events and issues, but I don’t like thinking about them too much or asking why. It’s just that things will be the way things will be and we have to accept them as they are. I don’t know if that’s a particularly positive way of thinking and I’m sure I’m not making any sense, but… YOLO.

Yep. I just went there.

I’m going to be starting my sophomore year of college in a couple days and I can’t believe I just typed that. I’ve written so many online blog posts about starting the first day of a school year in a couple days and it’s just mind blowing that time goes by so quickly like that. I feel like I really haven’t even accomplished very much. 

cool

i told you it was cool,
cause i wanted to shrug it off at the time.
hide behind the bushes and jump out,
"guess what? i forgive you!"
and you were proud of me, you said,
"i'm glad we're cool."

and i guess we were, we were cool.
we even shared a few words afterward.
but then the blanket of silence fell,
snow inside my head,
and i knew you never gave a damn about me
in the first place.

i know it was just an online thing,
but my heart could've sprinted a 5k
just thinking about your smile.
i wish i would've been more honest now,
told you how i'd spend a whole half hour
thinking of what to say to you.
i took it so seriously
and you probably still think we're cool -
a silent friendship,
cool.

puppet

i am not your puppet.
you will not wield me, bend me, mold me and make me yours.
you will not decorate my body with words you deem appropriate,
cut out from magazines,
carefully pasted on my pasty legs.

i am not your enemy.
though it may seem so, with my fiery temper
licking up your ocean breeze. .
you can try to tame me,
but this firestorm ain't cracklin for you.

you can take all the offense you want,
but i'll be fine with just water
and maybe a couple packets of
idon'tgiveafuck.
goodbye.

love letter to my copy of order of the phoenix

baby,

i love you so much. you've been with me through it all. i first purchased you at a walmart the morning you were released in 2003. i had to wait until about 11am because i was only a wee 9 year old at my grandma's house, where the nearest place (walmart) to purchase you was 40 minutes away. i got into the series in 2nd grade, after goblet of fire came out, so i never got to purchase a potter book on the day it was released. i hardly slept a wink while i awaited your arrival. in mere hours i ran into the chilled walmart in altoona, my goose bumped legs carrying me toward the books section.

even though i knew millions of other people purchased you from midnight onward, i felt SO special sitting in the backseat of our subaru, opening the fresh binding and grinning like i was about to discover the secret of the universe (i was). i saw "dudley demented" and felt pretty intimidated. i suddenly realized how big of a book you were. but then the gryffindor in me reminded myself that my fourth grade teacher had told me i couldn't read goblet of fire because it was too big. so therefore, i vowed to myself that i'd get to the end of you. 

i remember having to ask my mom what "bespectacled" meant. and what "enough - effing - owls" meant. "they said effing?" my mom asked incredulously. "well...yeah..." i thought i knew what that meant, but i wanted proof. 

i remember when reading you how harry's humor struck me for the first time as seriously funny. i would have laughed out loud at "we're not stupid, you know" "well, that's news to me" if i wouldn't have been such an awkward child. 

before i left for tour i found pictures in the basement of me at a family reunion at age 10 or 11, rereading you. my family was gathered inside the pitcairn park building but i was sitting outside with my huge thomas edison shirt, with you propped up on the picnic table in front of me, bigger than my head. i didn't care how it looked, i just wanted you alone, baby, and nothing more.

my dad dated the first page of you, and i remember feeling violated for your sake. i didn't want anyone touching my precious. "they say the third time you read a book is when you truly start to understand it," my dad told me. but i knew better. i knew i'd read you only once and understand every little thing about you. i judged you from your cover, and i couldn't have been more correct about your brilliance.

over the years i've brought you to the high school cafeteria and read from your pages instead of eating, stuffed you in my purse and brought you everywhere, and defended you from the hating muggles. once i even screamed and cried to get my way out of a bad situation, all the while focusing on your open pages for support. you've helped me more than you know.

you've accumulated various pen marks (i honestly don't know) and eyeliner stains when the sad parts came. you are waterlogged from when i cried and when my brother spilled water on you. you are taped up in some places and the back cover of you has flower and grass stains from when you tipped over the wooden porch railing and smashed onto my grandma's newly planted plain purple-and-red flowers. i thought i was so cool, underlining specific passages or words in pen as if they'd have a deeper meaning in the future. one time i was so tired reading you at the dining room table i fell asleep on the tablecloth, and another time i used you as a pillow on accident and woke up with your words imprinted on my face.

i was so excited and proud when i finished you. i ran to my sister's bedroom door - mine, now - and knocked, jumping up and down with my news. "i finished!" i squealed. "what happens?" she asked, and so i began to read to her.

every so often, i go back and read the first four books published before you. i did this recently, before looking at your size and getting overwhelmed and unwilling to bring you to college and carry you around since you were so damn heavy. but now i'm home, baby, i've come home and i'm sorry for neglecting you.

if possible, you mean more to me now than you did then. i will never forget the 'THEN I DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN!' and how i could relate to your depiction of harry more and more as i got older. thank you for everything.

i will now open your pages and once again fall under the spell of 9 year old tianna, with no doubt that the world is magical.

can we still be married?

love, 

your part time lover and full time friend,

tianna