Life(?) of Trillian

I've been unwillingly partaking in a personal experiment. One of those types experiments that's all the rage on blogs and indie books. Someone tries something "risky" or "out of their comfort level' and relays the experience as if they've discovered a cure for cancer. Except in my case I wasn't setting out to prove something or learn something about myself and society or liberate myself from anything, and what I've learned won't cure or prove anything.

I've been going without mascara or eye makeup for the past two weeks. And what's weird is that it's weird. I thought that at this stage of my life - the stage where I have given up on men, dating and given into the undeniable fact that I am ugly - going without makeup wouldn't be that big of an issue for me. After all, while I was unemployed makeup was a precious commodity, only to be used for special occasions like interviews. So, I was accustomed to not wearing makeup.

Or so I thought.

Apart from my semi-goth years in late high school and college I've never been one to wear a lot of makeup. And even in those goth years I wasn't as heavy-handed as most goth kids. I was more a hint of goth than full-on goth. Looking back on it, and looking at photos, I wore a "normal" amount of eye liner and mascara. It was just that I used black where the other girls at my high school were sticking to the more pastel or natural hues, so by comparison I was goth. If you were to see a photo of me back then you would not automatically assume I was into Fields of Nephilim and read a lot of Edgar Allan Poe.

After undergrad I went a little lighter with the eye makeup. Since then, depending on the occasion, my eye makeup varies from just mascara to a full on smokey eye, and a lot of variations in between. But my bare minimum "out in public" makeup requirements were mascara and some form of lip color. (I don't often wear mascara on my lower lashes because they're thick and long and I end up looking like Liza or Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange.)

It's not just that I like how my eyes look with a coating of mascara on my upper lashes. This is not a brag, it is a statement of fact: I have long eyelashes. If I don't curl them once a week or use mascara to lacquer them upward, they stick out a long way in front of my eyes and kinda get in my way. As in, impairing my vision.

A couple weeks ago I had my glaucoma test. The past few years my left eye has not passed the preliminary tests and is "preglaucomic" with steady but slow deterioration, while my right eye has been stable. This year my right eye performed very poorly, alarmingly bad. After much thorough examination and a few more tests, it was determined I am having another issue that skewed the right eye results. Fortunately, there are eye drops that should remedy the situation. (Very expensive prescription eye drops that are not covered by my insurance.) The eye drops have to be administered three times a day. Which means I have to use them during the work day. Which means eye makeup and mascara smudge all over the place (resulting in a true goth - as in Alice Cooper Show goth - look). I also have some "exercises" to do that involve my fingers prodding all around my eyes. Also resulting in smudged and smeared eye makeup.

So, I stopped wearing mascara (and the minimal eye shadow I sometimes wear to work).

Turns out that's weird for me.

I didn't realize how much I relied on mascara to make me feel "polished." I didn't think it would matter, I didn't think I would give it much thought.

There was no sobbing in the mirror while clutching my mascara, there was no soul searching, there wasn't much of anything other than the realization that my getting ready for work regime was a few minutes shorter.

I always wear sunglasses outdoors. Always. (Me and Bono.) It's the glaucoma thing. My parents were pretty easy going about health stuff - they didn't race me to the doctor or ER unless I really needed professional medical attention - but they were always very on top of the glaucoma situation. Both my paternal grandparents, all my father's siblings and my father all had glaucoma, most of them had early onset glaucoma. As of this writing all but 2 of my 12 cousins on my father's side have glaucoma. My father's grandmother was completely blind in her later years. We presume it was glaucoma-related. My mother's family is similarly afflicted, although my mother has so far dodged that genetic bullet. So. My parents were on top of glaucoma testing for us kids and were especially careful regarding eye care. My mother outfitted me in uv-blocking sunglasses long before Babiators hit the market. (It's a real thing, Google it or go to Whole Foods on a Saturday afternoon and check out what the kids in strollers are wearing.)

So, on the first day of no mascara, I put on my sunglasses as usual and headed out to catch the bus to work. I forgot I wasn't wearing mascara. Nothing was different. No one noticed. I didn't give it any thought. I forgot about it.

I got to work and set about my day as usual. Someone in the office asked me if I was coming down with a cold. I assumed they asked me that because I sneezed. "No, just allergies acting up," I responded. "Oh, yeah, itchy eyes and all that..." my coworker said. It was then I remembered I wasn't wearing mascara or eye makeup. Before going into a meeting my boss pulled me aside and asked me if I was okay. I asked her why she asked. She said, "You look tired and your eyes are kind of weird, like maybe you were crying last night."

Oh.

Well.

There it was.

Me - mascara = sick, tired, weird, crying aftermath*.

I went to the bathroom and took a look at my unmascara-ed eyes under the harsh florescent office light and saw what she meant. I looked tired, paler than normal, and generally "dull." And she was right, there was a "kind of weird" aspect to how my eyes looked. Difficult to articulate. Just not normal. Great. Two weeks of this? As if my appearance-based self-esteem weren't already less than zero...now this. Sigh. Whatever.

I put on another coat of lipstick and thought, "Nothing I can do about it." I made a point of putting in my eye drops at my desk with an exaggerated flourish so that people could see me administering them, hoping people would understand that I have an eye thing going on and there were no crying jag nights or illnesses or narcotic reasons for my "weird" eyes.

That should have been that.

But.

The realization that I have rarely gone out in public without mascara since I was 16 started nagging at me. I thought I wear makeup by choice. I choose to wear it when I want to wear it and because I want to wear it. Not because of ideals presented in women's fashion magazines. Not because of gender-based marketing. Not because the pretty, cool, popular women wear it. Not because my peer group wears it. And certainly not because men prefer women wearing makeup. That's what I thought. But now, suddenly, that's all called into question.

I started noticing women's eyes.

I noticed that there are plenty of women who do not wear mascara. But most of the women I speak with, and with whom I share eye contact, wear mascara. Most wear mascara and eye liner, and many also wear eye shadow. Several wear false eyelashes (I can spot 'em, just like fake boobs, women can distinguish the real from the fake immediately.)

Lashes have been a big deal over the past 10 years. There are lash bars, lash extensions, myriad "volumizing" and "lengthening" mascaras, and Brooke Shields hawks a prescription medication for something that stimulates lash growth. (And has the side-effect of changing the color of eyes...which seems a little extreme to me...I mean, that can't possibly be okay, can it? ) And apparently the women I associate with are all on board with lash accentuation.

Funny how I never really noticed that until I entered a mascara moratorium.

And funnier, still, how I realized I felt stripped of a part of my female identity.

This is a harsh reality check for me. Maybe I'm not the feminist I thought I was. Maybe I do care more about my looks that I thought I did. Maybe I am succumbing to peer pressure. Maybe I am swayed by gender-based marketing. Maybe I do kowtow to male expectations and ideas about what women "should" do to enhance their appearance.

Lots of disappointed sighs lately. I'm disappointed in myself. I didn't think it mattered. I didn't think I would care. I didn't think anyone would notice, or, if they didn't, I didn't think I would care that they noticed. I didn't think I would be counting the days until I can wave the magic wand of black pigmented wax over my eye lashes.

*Crying Aftermath is, I think, the one of the best band names I have unintentionally conjured.