lip gloss, life, and everything else.It's made it more pretty a few times -- okay, quite a few.
It's made it less chapped at times -- although I'm not all that prone to chapping.
Heck, it's made it more messy at times -- you ever try to get it out of a shirt? Yeesh!
But has lip gloss changed my life?
No.
Or has it?
Hmmm.
My mother, while not a lip gloss wearer, is a lipstick wearer and a Blistex wearer. My mother loves Blistex -- the whitish-silver-ointment-in-a-tube kind -- to a degree that I love very few things in life.
She puts it on everything from zits to cuts to dry skin to well... her lips. I think my mother believes that Blistex, applied correctly, could cure a number of diseases (up to, and including cancer).
If ever I complained of an ailment as a child, I could count on the standard response:
"Put some Blistex on it."
Now, I liked Blistex not because it was a cure-all, but because it made my lips look shiny and pretty (this was before I chose my own products to do that). I loved the effect. And my mom was okay with that, too.
After all, she's not a big fan of leaving the house without mascara on (a fact which she may pinch me for sharing with you). She's cool with cosmetics and never gave me flack about wearing them.
Or not wearing them, either. And that's the key.
She is not obsessed with her appearance or anyone else's. She places spirit and heart much higher up on the priority scale than body or face.
She can look at the most physically beautiful woman in the world and see nothing but ugliness if that woman has shown no decency or kindness to those around her. She can also look at someone that most people would see as homely or less attractive and see nothing but loveliness if they have displayed an honest and true heart.
I've tried my whole life to do the same thing. Most of the time, I even get it right. In the end, though, the person I am hardest on is inevitably me.
But my mom isn't hard on me at all. She thinks I'm gorgeous. So does my dad. And not because I am or because I have been or because I will be. They think that because they love my insides.
Now, sometimes my insides are none too pretty, and they call me on that. Sometimes my insides are impossibly ugly. But generally, when they look at me -- with their parent heart of forgiveness and unconditionality intact -- they see someone beautiful.
That's how they raised my heart to be.
But they also taught me that it was worth it to put on a little makeup if it made me feel good, that I could pull off a pretty dress if I wanted to, and that time I took for myself was time well spent, as long as it didn't become the most important thing in my world.
Indulging myself in healthy, reasonable, non-obsessive ways was a form of self-love that could build me up if I had a rough moment or a rough day -- or just if I felt like it. And there was nothing wrong with that; it was about confidence, not arrogance.
That same consideration of my own needs and confidence has had an impact on how I live the rest of my life, too. In fact, I started blogging because I felt the need to write, and because I believed I had something important to say now and then. Even if no one read it, it was worth doing for me.
So.
Last night, I watched the aforementioned (from yesterday's post) makeover show where people made changes to their appearance that ended up echoing into changes in the rest of their lives.
Apparently, one woman found a life-altering shade of lipgloss.
I was a little flummoxed. I mean, I understand that feeling good about how you look has an impact on how you behave and how you treat others, but I couldn't quite wrap my mind around the fact that such a small change rippled outward into such a dramatic impact.
But then I realized: if you'd never taken the time to do anything for yourself, if you'd never had the time or opporuntity to enjoy the details, if you'd always figured you weren't worth the effort -- and if those around you had affirmed that notion -- then hell yes, lip gloss would create a massive change.
This woman had spent so much time believing that she was ugly and useless that she could barely stand taking time to brush her hair, let alone slick on a layer of pale, sparkly pink.
They stopped her in her tracks and worked with her to make her feel worthy of such a small action. And in feeling worthy of small actions on her own behalf, she slowly became more open to spending time on larger things for her own well-being, like going to school and learning how to play the piano.
Little tiny things really do matter. Or I should say, little tiny things matter when they are backed up by affection, affirmation, and love -- and when they create little bursts of confidence to match.
These were all things that the people doing the makeover had in mind when they put the lip gloss on the woman. They weren't giving her a makeover because they thought she was ugly -- they were giving her a makeover because she hadn't taken the time to believe in her own beauty and worth.
Now, I'm not saying that this is the impetus behind every makeover. Sometimes, people just think others need to change to possess value. That's fundamentally wrong, obviously.
But in this particular case, the time and effort taken was all about encouraging someone to see themselves -- not just their outsides, but their insides -- more clearly.
And if it took lip gloss to do it, then lip gloss was life-changing.
My mom isn't really obsessed with Blistex.
But she's always had a tube handy for herself.
And now -- so do I.
4:03:51 PM 
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