“The real you is who you are at home,” one of my ministers said off the pulpit a few Sunday services ago, and it has been on my mind since.
Have you ever thought about how you can fake everything in this day and age? Women have easy access to everything needed to conceal who they truly are beneath the skin. You can get fake piercings and tattoos, draw on your eyebrows, get lip injections, and freeze away your fat. You can buy Instagram followers in the same place you can buy the nifty little app Facetune, where you can whiten your teeth, bronze your skin, and clear your pimples with the slide of a finger. Or if you are like me, conceal your color outgrowth you haven’t had time to get touched up.
You can fake it all - popularity, flawless skin, happiness. But the question remains, is it real? Why are we so afraid to be the person we are at home? Clearly among family and close friends, that is where we are most comfortable and peer pressure doesn’t hit us quite as hard.
I’m not saying, “Don’t wear makeup” or “Because you wear fake tattoos, you are hiding the real you.” More-so, what is your reasoning behind wanting it? If you just want it to fit in and be like everyone else because you are too afraid to admit it’s not for you, then sorry, but it can go. If you have always wanting a nose ring and are just too afraid to get it pierced (ME!) and go out at night with a fake ring on your nostril; girl, keep rocking it!
Don’t follow a trend just to make everyone else feel comfortable. Start your own trend to make yourself feel comfortable, because who cares what anyone thinks about your socks and Birkenstocks combo?
The girl that lazes around in sweatpants, a messy bun, and no makeup staring back at you in the mirror - she’s as real as they get. Embrace her, and don’t ever lose sight of the beauty and strength within her.
