Remarkably Really Me

Soap opera fans are taking notice of the pattern that is emerging with an increasing number of female actors. They will not be on screen for weeks or months but when they return they are brand new. All you have to do is look at past episodes or images of these women online and you can see they have had plastic surgery. With all due respect, it is not appealing to see faces drawn so tight that the soap star can barely open her mouth to say her lines.

I believe in growing older gracefully so I am no longer going to wear makeup or perm my hair. What you see is what you get and I am going natural. I spent manty decades and a lot of money trying to conform with the norms of society and the pop culture of each generation. As a young black girl my hair was straightened with a hot comb so that it would not be in it's natural style. As a teen everyone wore makeup and this continued into adulthood.

I learned something during 40 years of marriage that I would like to pass on. When you are alone in bed with your spouse it all comes off. The "it" being whatever you have done to enhance yourself. The makeup, girdles, hair weaves and extensions, padded and or underwire bras must go and you are left with how you really look. If you have done all of this to impress a man what will he think when he sees the real you.

Men simply dress up and use a little cologne and do not go to the extremes that women do. Pantyhose, panty girdles, fake nails and other accessories only mask the real you. I have to wonder how as a society we got this way to put everything into an outward look rather than getting to know people as they really are?

I recall a woman who went to a church I used to attend. She was heavyset, wore big coke bottle frame glasses and people called her dumpy and frumpy which was not nice. I never saw her in makeup or excessive jewelry. Her husband loved her as she was and they were married about 45 years until she died sitting beside him on their front porch.

I recall a day in 8th grade Home Economics class where the football coach talked to the girls. He pointed out one of our classmates who always dressed nice and wore a scarf to match her hair. He said she was the kind of girl that boys would go for but I now know that is not true. All men do not like the same kind of woman as Steve Harvey always says. I recall a guy coming up to me in school and saying that men did not like skinny women like me but the day I met my husband he said he liked small women.

I did not even weigh 100 lbs. that day but years later when I was 162 I brought up what my spouse had said decades before. He responded by saying that he did not expect me to stay thin forever and he loved me as I was even with the extra weight. I share this to make a point that we each need to love the skin we are in and a spouse who does the same is a bonus.

I am saving so much time and money by not purchasing eye shadow, mascara, lipstick, foundation, and other forms of makeup. I also walk barefoot in the house and outside in my yard even in the winter if the temperature allows. There is something liberating about freeing my feet from socks and shoes. I feel so free to be the remarkable me that I really am and always was but was hidden away underneath all the outer trappings.