Context makes the moment though, so let's back up a little bit.
One of the gifts I was given as a child was really high self esteem. I credit this to my parents, who were always telling me how beautiful I was, and how smart, and funny and interesting. They were interested in where I was, and who I was with, and what I was doing. I always felt valued, and it inflated my sense of self probably a bit more than was actually congruent with my skills and abilities. But still, I walked around for my early life generally of the opinion that I was pretty great, and that I had life more or less figured out.
In 2006, I found myself at the beginning of a long divorce. One that would take a year and a half to finalize. I went from having a family, a husband and son, and a mortgage on a newly constructed home near Pikes Peak, to living with my mom, and with Lucas, broke, broken, and starting again, in what felt like the blink of an eye. My first marriage had always been more work than marriage should be, the product of being married too young, to someone who was really really too young, and who was fighting his own demons that had nothing to do with me. Even still, my divorce came as a shock. And it broke my spirit in half, took my entire protective shell, and just left me, with whiplash, wondering what the hell happened.
In late April, 2007, I sat on the edge of the bed in my first mother-in-law's bedroom, (because she kept me in the divorce) and watched as Barack Obama, who I'd barely heard of, announce that he was running for President. Lucas, who was just three years old at the time, was undoubtedly chasing his barely-older-than-he-is aunties around, but I snatched him, and made him sit and watch with me.
I had been feeling lost, and small, and unworthy, and not enough. By then, I'd gotten my act together enough to move out of my mom's house, and Lucas and I were living in a 550 square foot one bedroom apartment that only had a shower, and not a bathtub. I picked the one bedroom, because it was all I could afford (divorce is expensive, ya'll) and because at that point I was still too scared to let Lucas out of my sight. I had constant nightmares that he was kidnapped, or trapped somewhere that I couldn't get to him, and so it re-assured me to stick my hand over the side of my bed and feel his tiny chest rising and falling in the toddler bed next to my full size one. If I had to go the bathroom in the middle of the night, I would pick up his perfect little round form, slightly sticky with sleep sweat, and carry him down the hall to the bathroom with me.
So many nights, I'd look at him, slumped and sleeping on the bathmat while I peed and I would just cry. Because this was not the plan. Just the two of us in a little apartment was not the plan. Being a single mom was not the plan. I thought about all of the people who had told me that that there was no place for mixed kids in the world, and I felt like I'd already failed Lucas' whole life. Because he was going to be brown, with a white mom, who was a single parent, who couldn't give him all the advantages his pre-school friends had. I wondered how my mistakes would impact his life, and if he would ever recover from all the ways I had already let him down.
But on that Spring day in 2007, I felt new life stirring in my bones. Barack Obama was brown. Barack Obama had a white mother. She was single too. Barack Obama was raised by his mother and grandparents. Just. Like. Lucas. I looked at Barack Obama's face that day, practically a juvenile compared to the way he looks now, and I fell in love. Not fan girl love. Just love. Lucas love. If this brown man with the funny name could actually pull this thing off, I could see the doors blow open on my own son's life. Nobody that looks like my kid had ever been President before, but this son of a Kansas born single mother could change the stars.
We were lucky to get to hear Barack Obama speak in person twice before he was elected. If you have never heard a candidate for President speak, it involves hours of waiting, and lines, and being confined in very close quarters. Its stressful and hot, and only real masochists take their little kids. But it was beyond important to me to have Lucas see him with his own eyes. I wanted him to be able to tell his grand children one day.
I took Lucas with me to vote, and it remains to this day one of the most joyful memories of my life. There was an older man in line in front of me, who took pictures of his deceased parents into the voting booth with him so they could all vote together. I couldn't stop crying. The juxtaposition of my tiny boy, newly five by then, and this man and the memory of his parents, enveloped me and I can close my eyes and go back to that moment at any time.
By the time Barack Obama was elected, our life had changed some too. We had our own bedrooms now, in a bigger apartment with a bathtub and a porch. We had furniture that I'd bought new. Just the two of us didn't feel sad anymore, it felt like a celebration. Lucas tried to stay awake to see the results come in, but he didn't quite make it. I remember walking into the bedroom and whispering in his little ear that we did it, that Barack Obama was the president. He lifted his sleepy head, whispered, "yay" and fell back to sleep. I don't think my feet touched the ground for days. Just by being elected, Barack Obama changed the course of our lives forever. Because I knew for sure that his election meant that there were no limitations on Lucas. Raised by a single parent? You can still be President. Not white? Doesn't matter. Barack Obama is the President. I don't know if the voices stopped telling about what Lucas could or couldn't be, or if I just stopped listening, but since November 4, 2008, those doubts have never been a part of my life.
Time is such a funny thing, and it marches on so quickly. The life I had on November 6, 2012, looked nothing like the one I had in 2008. No longer a single parent, I was married to my love. A homeowner again, bedrooms for everyone! This time it was Asher's turn. I held my just-past-his-first-birthday-baby while I voted, and made him the same silent promises I'd made Lucas four years before. No limitations on you. Barack Obama won again. My first boy could only remember a Black President and my second boy had never known anything else.
Which brings us up to now.
I never took Donald Trump seriously. I had never really been a fan, but as the election drew closer and closer I awaited the news of him dropping from the race every day. Because surely this angry court jester never had a real shot. I watched him mock and belittle anyone who disagreed with him. I saw his huge ego, and I recognized that very little of what he said was rooted in any kind of honesty. Because surely people could see. Surely people could see he was totally without qualification, and beyond that, totally without manners, decorum, or a sense of human decency. Honestly, it didn't matter anyway. Though I personally was a Bernie fan, I joked with my husband and the people that I talked politics with that Khaleesi was coming to Westeros. Hillary Clinton seemed like she was on a freight train with destiny.
When the pussy grabbing stuff came out, I thought for sure that was the end of it. Surely, no one with a clear mind would elect a President who bragged about sexually assaulting women. Surely this would be the deal breaker where none of the other things had been. Surely this world, the one that now housed my daughter in addition to my two sons held women in higher regard than that. Surely, women held themselves in higher regard than that. Surely I had nothing to worry about.
But we all know how that worked out.
I went to bed on election night at about 1 am. The race hadn't officially been called yet, and I felt like somehow, if I didn't see it happen, it wasn't real. I tried not to cry as I willed sleep to come, and the harder I tried not to, the more I cried. When I woke up, it was over.
I know it is a microagression, my white shock at the outcome of election. I apologize for it now, sincerely, and on a multitude of levels. But to tell the story right, is to try and put words somehow to the utter shock I felt. And to how let down I felt by humanity. How could my fellow people allow this to happen? How could some of them be celebrating? It brought on this fog of sadness and anger and suspicion that I have, to this day, found hard to shake. Through November and December and January I told myself that it wouldn't be as bad as I was making it out to be, that nothing is ever as bad as we build it up in our minds to be, and that it would all be fine.
But January 20th happened and it isn't fine. It is just as bad as I feared it would be, and it gets worse every day. I already don't recognize my surroundings and its been a week now. It feels like years. It feels like decades. It feels like The Lorax after the last Truffula tree is cut down, and the last Bar-ba-loot leaves in his Bar-ba-loot suit. As a side note,Theodor Seuss Geisel- Dr. Seuss- was actually very much an activist. So much so that one of my Republican relatives, who shall remain nameless, refused to let her children and grandchildren read his books. It feels like Donald Trump could be The Lorax. He's like The Lorax meets Hitler meets your uncle's creepy friend who hugs you for too long.
If there is a silver lining for me, and I think its the same silver lining for many Americans, its that his election has spurred within us a sense of activism. It feels like this country is going off the rails, and the Checks and Balances System I grew up hearing about in socials studies feels like it suddenly has neither checks nor balances. And so I feel like, more and more, We The People are our own checks and balances. We have a duty, as Trump silences the press and presents "Alternative Facts" to call him on the carpet for every lie told. We have a duty to contact our elected officials, our senators and congress people and hold them accountable for doing their job on behalf of their constituents. We have a duty to resist, to remain focused, and to never become desensitized to this awful man and what he stands for.
I said all of that to get to this point.
Its sort of hard to wonder what the hell it is I am doing here now. We are at the most dangerous and unstable point in American history, who cares about lipstick?
I don't really have the answer to that.
Makeup has never really been about makeup for me. Sometime around when Obama was elected, I found my footing again in life. I marched forward, I found happiness, and then, when the right time came, I fell in love. My life was, and is, so blessed.
Halo came in 2014. I still can't believe the blessing of three beautiful, healthy kids. I am forever grateful for them, and for my husband, the people that have made my whole life, and who I love more than anything, so do not misunderstand what I am about to say.
Having three kids is hard. Its really hard. After my divorce, I had to find a new normal, and it was a long time coming, but I found it. When my second baby was born, after almost eight years with only one, I had to find my new normal. It took a little while, but it got here. And so, when baby #3 came along, I waited, knowing my new normal would get here.
I'm still waiting.
My wise friend Ashley is fond of saying that there are only two numbers when it comes to children, zero and non-zero. In many ways she is correct, but I felt a shift come along with Halo. An almost imperceivable disturbance in the force, if you will.
Raising three children is hard. Raising all numbers of children is hard, but when we hit three, I felt, really for the first time, like there wasn't enough of me to go around. I'm stupidly lucky, because I'm raising them with a father who loves them dearly and wants to be an active participant in their lives. I have a village. Its obscene how lucky we are in the village department. But still. Raising three children, and giving them, and my husband, and my friends and family, and our house, and my job, all the attention and love and care they need was a first world problem that I was not prepared for. And as I tried super hard to be super mom, I felt myself get more lost in the shuffle every day.
But then makeup.
I didn't fall in love with makeup, I fell in love with me. It isn't about red lipstick and eyelash curlers, its about me. Its about 30 minutes in the morning that is just for me to do something that is just for me. Its about literally every other moment in my life being about someone else's needs, but that time is mine. Its about getting to celebrate being a girl. Because despite the war DT is waging against women, there isn't anything I would rather be. The beautiful thing about being female is that it can be whatever you want it to be. My celebration of what being feminine is to me might not look like yours, and thats okay. For me, being female means that I was given the gift of forgiving quickly. I can walk in high heels, no matter how high. And I get to wear them any time I want. It means softness. It means nurturing. It means Asher snuggling onto the very same belly that grew him and saying, "you're comfy, mom." It meant the honor of three little heartbeats, beating in double-time with mine, growing right underneath my own heart. Being a woman for me is when my husband pulls me close at night and tells me that I smell good. It means loving beautiful things and not having to apologize. It means learning to be brave in a work place that sometimes doesn't fully appreciate my intelligence and determination. It means that I keep going when I'm tired and I want to stop. It means encouraging others to have the faith to start again. It means a circle of woman friends that I am so thankful to know.
Sometimes when I am writing or posting about makeup, I want to stop myself. I think, "this is so silly, who cares?" But makeup for me, is regenerating every single day so that I have the strength and the ability to pour into others. It makes me happy, but mostly because it reminds me once again that I am worth the time and the energy. I am a valuable voice in this world.
I don't know whats going to happen. The world makes no sense right now, and its probably going to get worse before it gets better. But I've never been prouder to be female. And I love makeup for its inclusion. Makeup doesn't care. It doesn't care if you are a woman or a man or both or neither. Its my own little way of celebrating all of the beauty that still exists in the world, and reminding myself every day of the beauty that still exists in me.
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