- i think it may have been this one 💋
I found MAC. I used to spend agessss looking at all of the eye shadows colours 😍😍 It wasn't long until I owned a 15 pan palette of MAC eye shadows and some of their brushes. The thing was, I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it. I lived with men and even chatting to mum could only go so far without chewing her ear off 😂 So one day I used a webcam and filmed a 'June favourites'. And before I knew it, I was planning on other videos. I started my YouTube channel and I had no idea how much I was going to enjoy it. Only a few months after that, I started my blog.
At that time I was in a long-term relationship, I was a full time carer to my then boyfriend which meant I worked from home. I was able to fit blogging and YouTubing around my work life, family time and all the other stuff 😏 Then that led to me buying a camcorder. By this time my collection was growing and growing. I was in love. And sharing it online made me feel great because there were tonnes of people talking about it too. I didn't feel alone in my love for cosmetics 😃
At the end of 2013, my relationship ended and as a result, I was without a job and had to move back home. Within a few days we reconciled but I made the decision to stay living at home and (at some point) look for work. I was pretty broken, I'm not going to lie. For three months I stayed at home, living in my pj's, watching bad tv and crying. Even though I was glad to have my relationship, I felt like I had shattered into a million pieces. It wasn't until this time that I realized that I hadn't really felt like me for a long time. It took for me to not have a lot of things (and people) to focus on for me to see how low and lost I felt.
By the time November/December came around, I had had enough. I call this my 'mini epiphany'. I started to look after myself, practice self care and looked for a job. By Christmas I was working in a shop. In the beginning I felt great. I started to make content for the blog and I began uploading videos again. Over the next 4 months or so, I lost my ability to cope with everyday things and had become consumed by OCD. It resulted in me having to leave. I had moved back in with my boyfriend and over the course of 2014, my mental health deteriorated with my OCD worsening. By the end of that year, he ended the relationship, this time for good. In a way it all felt so familiar to me, back at home, no job, no boyfriend. But this time rather than me having a blank space, I had OCD to keep me company, something for me to focus on.
I have 'tried' over the years to continue with YouTube and blogging but it was half-hearted and not what it once was. Makeup became something I felt I had to put on when seeing people so that I didn't look how I felt. The enjoyment had disappeared. Looking back, it's hard to think of that time. It was painful but also was the beginning of me truly losing myself. With most things, I gave up. I felt in nearly every way possible, completely lost and raw.
And here we are.
Looking back, it feels like most aspects of my life over the last five years have been obliterated. And now I'm looking all around me, I'm seeing the people who are still here, noticing the people who aren't. Trying to pick up the parts that survived and working out what I need to build from scratch. Grabbing all of the important bits but leaving the ashes of what are no longer needed. I'm seeing little shoots growing up through the earth, reaching up begging to be cared for.
I've realized that my world wasn't in another person. I know this because when it felt like my world had ended, I am still here, and they are not.
My world is exactly that, mine.
It's 2018. My love of makeup, making videos and blogging are some of the parts I have picked up. They are part of what makes me, me. A scared part of me made me believe that they weren't who I am but I am coming to realize that that was a load of rubbish. I sacrificed those parts of me - unknowingly - to aid my OCD and depression and it makes me sick to know that. I have made myself as small and inconspicuous as possible in the hopes that it would mean my world wouldn't end again. But you know what? Maybe it has felt like my world has ended but it starts up again, as long as I allow it to. I can't stomach feeling like I'm standing in my own way. I have been watching some of my older videos on YouTube and it fills me with both happiness and sadness. She was so full of life, doing what she loved to do. It hurts me to know that I am the only thing stopping that from being my reality again.
In recent weeks, I have begun to feel that familiar feeling. New palettes I want to buy, testing out new eye shadow combinations, wanting to film videos. I feel like me. I know makeup doesn't solve everything, but it is who I am at my core. It is a part of me that I pretended wasn't there and in doing so, cause some damage. I'm looking around at the world I am creating and it feels like this is how it always should have looked - looking after myself and doing the things I enjoy. I am curious like the woman who stumbled across a Pixiwoo video, who was mesmerized by all of the MAC eye shadow choices. The woman who actively chatted to fellow makeup enthusiasts, who felt like it was Christmas morning standing at her first IMATS. She has survived, she's just been buried for a long time. Now I am finally allowing her to come to the surface, where she was always meant to be.
This is the first part of me I am reclaiming 💖🚀
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