{"id":2463,"date":"2022-03-19T13:27:52","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T17:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deborahblackwell.com\/?p=2463"},"modified":"2022-03-19T13:29:08","modified_gmt":"2022-03-19T17:29:08","slug":"got-beauty-tude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deborahblackwell.com\/?p=2463","title":{"rendered":"Got Beauty-tude?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

By Deborah Blackwell<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I knew the day would come. The only person wearing a mask was me. I thought I would be fine with it, because I\u2019m strong, confident, unconcerned with the status quo. Wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Everything\u2019s become \u201ca thing\u201d since the start of the pandemic two horrible years ago. Working was a thing. Grocery shopping was a thing. Masks were a thing. Life was a thing. Hair was a big thing. And when the world tried to open up last year, I didn\u2019t play along. The invisible killer was still on the loose. It was just wishful thinking that we were safe. So I stuck with the routine, and wore my mask everywhere I went. It didn\u2019t seem so hard. I wasn\u2019t alone, and felt fine wearing my face covering. I didn\u2019t bat an eye.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, then it happened.<\/p>\n

I went for a hair appointment the other day, just like I had been doing\u2014mask on, ready for the complicated, messy endeavor of getting my hair colored, washed, trimmed, and dried while wearing something strapped around my ears. But when I walked in, things were different. No one was wearing a mask.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I instantly reverted back to 6-year-old me: self-conscious, embarrassed, and unsure what to do. I didn\u2019t fit in, and I didn\u2019t have an invisibility cloak. So, do I take it off? Or do I balk at the new status quo? It\u2019s only been a week, and unlike most of the world, I\u2019m not quite ready to go bare. It feels \u201ctoo soon.\u201d I even made an excuse out loud for having it on. \u201cI\u2019m immunocompromised, so I\u2019m being careful.\u201d<\/p>\n

I mean, is it really safe? How do we know? What if it\u2019s not? And P.S., I\u2019m used to my mask. As constricting as it is, I feel sort of ageless in it. There\u2019s a mystery about people in a mask that leaves room for imagination. It somehow made me more confident. It kept me safe from harm, while also hiding my flaws. But I didn\u2019t realize one of my flaws was lack of courage to be different\u2026go solo on wearing a mask. \u00a0<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time I\u2019ve been cowardly in respect to hair. When salons were closed at the start of the pandemic, I decided to try going gray. I wasn\u2019t alone, I saw lots of lengthy roots everywhere I turned. I\u2019ll save the soul-squelching experience resulting from 18 months of gray for another post, but it has the same theme. I lost every speck of my confidence.<\/p>\n

I looked around the familiar setting and that seemed newly unfamiliar. Who were these maskless faces? \u201cTry not to overthink it,\u201d my stylist said with a big smile. \u201cIt happened to me too.\u201d So I sat there, shrunk down in the chair, hiding under my cape, avoiding the mirror. My once-pretty-to-me pink mask now looked like a giant swatch of papery pleats dotted in brown goop, taking up half my face. I didn\u2019t feel like the others looked: free, confident\u2026or beautiful.<\/p>\n

I have a good friend from China, who although she has been here for 30 years, still struggles with English. In one of our long conversations recently, she used the word \u201cbeauty-tude.\u201d At first, I tried to act like I knew what she meant, but I couldn\u2019t quite figure it out. Then I realized she was referring to me. Apparently I had beauty-tude. I finally asked her what it meant. She said beautiful, confident, full of grace, no matter your challenges. Um\u2026me? Not in the salon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But confidence is a whole other deal. I used to project it, even if I didn\u2019t feel it. An extroverted introvert, I could take over a room like I owned it, despite quivering inside. But when our world changed, and we stopped going \u201cout there,\u201d we came face-to-face with a reality we didn\u2019t know. What once felt familiar now seemed disorienting. Every time we left the house we took our life in our hands. Anxiety became our MO, confidence melted away.<\/p>\n

As I sat there in my messy mask, I realized I will need to map my way back to beauty-tude. I can\u2019t just rip my mask off like a Band-Aid and run out into the world as if I had just won the lottery. I need to build a bridge from the last two years to the present awkward moment. Dip my toe in. Relearn how confidence feels. It\u2019s so easy to recognize our limitations, even if others don\u2019t. Confidence might come from hair color, or even following the status quo. But life is about living and I\u2019ve got nothing to lose. Except, or course, my mask.<\/p>\n

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