Confidence was new to Dez. At least the confidence that Em said she needed. Was this how it was supposed to feel? Looking in the mirror, she cocked her head to one side. “I’m in my 40’s! This is ridiculous.”
She was okay in her own life, but when she was around Matt, it vanished. The brash bold person she had been in her life before COVID had gone up in a puff of smoke. Finding it again had been a struggle. She felt awkward around people. Grateful to her big sister for teaching her how to apply make-up and what clothes to wear, she liked the play of it all. Her spa job had added to making this new image. But when she looked in the mirror she couldn’t see herself. Someone that resembled her hid inside the glass and she felt less than. Afraid she’d mess up her hair or her mascara would run down her face, she grew stiff and cold. How could she be grateful to her big sister and her co-workers? They had only succeeded in showing her how to cover herself up in colour and paint. Like any blank canvas she worked with. No, all that paint and makeup didn’t help. She became a shy little girl waiting for Matt to notice her. “Ugh!! Matt has seen me up close with dirt on my face and under my nails.” For a fleeting moment, she felt angry at them all, until the anger settled into her insides for listening. As a child, her dad would call her mother’s make up ‘war paint’. Well she was not going to war. Hiding herself behind a face mask was not helping. She was an artist and when a painting was going wrong she either wiped it clean or painted over it and start again. “Maybe just a bit of blush……….”
~~~~~
Working with softer colours, Dez put on the finishing touches when her doorbell rang. One more brush through her hair, a quick look at herself in the full length mirror, she went to the door. Tall and lean, Matt smiled at her and said. “You’re back!”
“How many cares one loses when one decides
not to be something but to be someone.”
~ Coco Chanel
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