Last week I had an epic meltdown. The meltdown of all meltdowns. Think Kim Kardashian crying face and multiply that by 10. Epic. I woke up like any normal day and started my routine. I rolled out of my bed, let my dog out, brushed my teeth, and sat down in front of my mirror and immediately lost all sanity I ever had. To be clear, I never claimed to be all the way sane to begin with. Staring back at me for the third day in a row was a giant black eye with a lump over my eyebrow that had begun to show faint signs of a bruise to match.
Let me rewind for you real quick. Two weekends ago I went out with my friends and I stayed sober sally. I had to work the next morning and I was already pretty worn out from working that day anyways. There is this guy at one of the bars we go into that is hands down one of the most handsome men ever. We were making jokes all night about how I just loooooved him. I was walking by him to get to the bathroom and I could hear my slightly (probably totally) intoxicated friends snickering. I turned my head to laugh, turned back around & BOOM. I had quite literally run straight into the wall. Actually, my eye ran straight into the wall. It hurt. It really hurt. I felt it swell immediately. Luckily, not a single soul in this packed bar saw me impale the wall, but I knew it happened & I had a giant lump over my left eye to prove it. The bartender definitely knew the second my friend asked for ice and the ice was wrapped into a napkin and held to my face. It definitely wasn't my most glamorous moment and certainly wasn't winning the affections of the handsome stranger, but back to what I was saying about my meltdown....
The morning after the incident I knew it was going to be bad. I felt it before I even looked at it. I needed to come to terms with the fact that I was probably forming a bruise on my forehead. "It's okay, I can cover that with makeup", is what I kept telling myself until my mom gasped when she saw me and my dad started making jokes about how I should tell everyone I was in a bar fight to up my street cred. I finally looked into the mirror and I won't lie, I had a mini heart attack. The black eye staring at me wasn't pretty at all. I genuinely hated it. Like good team players my family and friends all told me it wasn't that bad. I started to calm down. Plus, I am a wizard with a makeup brush, so you actually couldn't even tell after I applied makeup! I was satisfied! No one will ever know I ran into a wall, why I ran into the wall, or what my face looks like with this black eye. WINNING.
Fast forward to the morning of my epic meltdown. It could have been the lack of sleep combined with my impending visit from mother nature that spawned such a meltdown, but one look at my eye and I was suddenly spiraling down a hole of self hate. My black eye suddenly was public enemy number one. I felt stupid for running into a wall. I felt ugly because I had a black eye. I was frustrated at myself for caring so much what everyone thought. (I also have some other stuff I am working through that made the meltdown all the more intense) I was just in a fit of ridiculous rage when I started my super long drive to work. I spend a serious amount of time sitting in traffic during this drive and my mind kept circling back to the lengths I was going to in order to keep my black eye concealed.
Dudes get black eyes all the time and they don't have makeup to cover theirs. Why was I being so intentional about covering it up? Why was I scheduling my morning around the extra steps and makeup it was going to take to make it disappear? Why did I care so much if people saw it? Why did I care what strangers thought of me?! Then it hit me, high expectations. Not expectations that I had set for myself, but the ones that society had set for me and I simply accepted as my own. Women don't have black eyes. Our faces must look flawless. Our makeup must be done to perfection and done with these products. We must always act put together, happy, and charming to match how flawless we look. We are so worried about anyone seeing our imperfections, even the most minuscule ones, that we lose sight of our own expectations and how wonderful our imperfections really are! They are what make us who we are after all. They make us special.
We as people, and especially as women, need to learn to love ourselves for who we are. Perfection be damned. Embrace all of your imperfections and set your own expectations! If your expectations for yourself include doing a full face of flawless makeup everyday because you genuinely love doing that then more power to you & keep that shit up! I wish I was like that! I love doing my makeup, but I would not normally put as much on as I did, and some days I am lucky If I even get up early enough to put makeup on. That extra 20 minutes (actually 45...) of sleep is crucial. September goals: be true to my emotions and myself. Only live up to the expectations I have set for myself.
I, Kristin Noel Albrecht, am a tornado of a person with a large personality who sometimes runs her face into inanimate objects appreciating beautiful men. A glamorous hot mess with what is perceived to be a sick sense of humor, but I simply think I am hilarious. I am enough.