On reputations and habits

Another stupid metaphor:

I woke up from a dream on Monday morning of my friends and I at prom. We were all dolled up, enjoying ourselves, and complementing each other on dresses, shoes, hair, the like. It was a dream that made me feel girly so, while getting ready for school, I decided to borrow (steal) some of my mom's eyeliner. I primarily reserve eye makeup for special occasions so, unlike many girls my age, its application was far from second nature. I traced the path just above my eyebrows, trying and retrying to make the line as straight and as perfect as possible. After 5 or 6 attempts, when my lids had stopped twitching and my hands found the right way to hold the pencil, I was satisfied.

I felt special wearing eyeliner to school. In my first period class, my teacher noticed the change by calling me "muy bonita" (luckily before class started to save me from any embarrassment). Although some of my friends were unable to pin point exactly what I had done ("you look so different today! Did you change your hair?), a couple did take direct notice. My best friend's face lit-up when I saw her that morning. "Looks great, Jules! You should do that more often!" She said to me.

So I did. Tuesday morning it only took me 3 attempts to trace my lids and by Thursday I finally felt competent enough with the pencil to make my blond teenager stereotype proud. But, just as I was becoming more and more used to using eyeliner, people were becoming more and more used to me wearing it. Eventually, nobody said anything of my makeup. I went from a girl who was wearing eyeliner to a girl who wears eyeliner in the course of a week.

I got to thinking about what this meant this morning. Looking down at the pencil in my hands, I twirled it naturally between my fingers and wondered how something smaller than my pinky could change the way my entire personality was perceived, how people and myself saw me. I thought about what it meant to be an eyeliner girl and decided, though it was fun for a few days, that was not really who I am.

So, feeling dramatic, I turned the faucet left and scrubbed viciously at my eyelids. I rinsed and flushed and blotted but, when I finally pulled the towel from my face, a small trace of brown still remained.

It was a smudge, really, nothing substantial. For the most part it looked like I was not wearing makeup at all. But it was there.

Now, 12 hours later, the smudge is still faintly visible. Because, as it seems, makeup does not easily erase. Even a few days if a habit will stick around longer than you expected.

Until that smudge goes away, I will still be a girl who wears eyeliner. I will still look like I'm squinting when I hold eye contact, my eyelids will still feel droopy when I lay my head to rest. I do not know how long that smudge will be there; I hope it's not long. I also do not know if I will ever dabble in makeup again; my guesses are I probably will. But, next time, I hope I invest in makeup remover.