And We Change (part deux)

Makeup came up in convo today.  If you've known me for any length of time you know I don't like makeup because I feel it's just one more way for women to look at themselves every morning and say, "I'm not good enough, so I'm gonna hide mysefl."

(I know, I know, makeup can be fun, blah, blah, yeah.  I know.)

Anyway.  I used to be so vehement about this.  I mean, I would get really bothered by people depending on their makeup.  It wasn't just, "I don't wear it because I don't feel I need to change myself to fit into some unattainable standard of beauty," it was, "I don't wear it because of reasons stated above, AND YOU SHOULDN'T WEAR IT EITHER!  LET'S BURN OUR BRAS!  LET'S MARCH ON D.C.! WOMEN, UNITE!"

Despite my former extremism, today as I sat with a group of people I've only known for six weeks the topic of makeup came up and I realized three things:

1. I still don't wear makeup and still for the same reasons, but I'm now largely ambivalent about it. 
2. I haven't talked about this in probably three years.
3. I didn't want to talk about it today. 

How ashamed 21-year-old Rachel would be of 31-year-old Rachel!  I can hear what she would say: Don't you have any convictions, you washed up old sell-out?? Then she would proceed to present her argument on women's rights and equality and objectification and hound me until I conceded.

Wow.

I'm so glad to be old.  But more than that, I'm glad to be healthy.  I think I posted this somewhere (though I took a lot of my endo posts down when I was job hunting): surgery did wonders for my hormones. All those little pinprick points of endometriosis were creating excess estrogen in my body, which made my emotional state extreme every single day of my life.  Post-surgery when I had my first period I also had my first PMS.  I'd never had PMS before; everyday had been PMS before surgery.  My whole like - my whole life - my emotions were strong and tended predominantly toward the negative.  In hindsight, I think I was depressed for the entire decade of my 20s.  Life was extreme and induced extreme reactions.  Nothing was "meh"; everything - including something as minor as makeup - needed a stance, an opinion, an argument, a thesis, a campaign.

Thank You, Lord, those days are behind me.  No wonder I'm exhausted.