Makeup

I can feel the mascara on the end of my eye lashes. They’re clumped together. Three or so per clump. My throat is dry and sore, my nose is dripping like a faucet and my feet are bare. I feel bare. I feel exposed.

 I performed tonight. It was opening night of the Count of Monte Cristo. I shouldn’t be surprised the pattern continued. One good rehearsal, one bad rehearsal. On the good days I walk home with a goofy grin plastered on my face and on the bad days? I don’t say much. The absence of a smile is the way the people who know me the best know that something is wrong.

Today I was left with questions. I wanted to shout it from rooftops. What about me? Do you think that about me too? What can I do to please you? Sometimes I try to answer them. I read people. The only answer which I seem to find is that people are hypocritical. Incredibly hypocritical. They say one thing yet they mean another. I’m just                confused.

I’m a stereotypical teenage girl. They suffer from insecurity. About their image, about what they’ve done and about what they haven’t done. I’ve been trying to well (for want of a better word) quash this insecurity. Every day I like to think about the good things that I have in my life. It’s gradual process each day just a little bit more and more until eventually I can look in the mirror and feel completely content. Or at least I could. I wish I was more like one of those little rubber bouncy balls that you buy from the $2 n $5 shop (they changed the name shock horror). Whenever someone drops one of those balls on the ground they seem to leap up even higher than where they were dropped from. They really are remarkable things. I had one question or more a string of questions or comments that made me feel weak. I’m sad to admit that during this entire production it’s almost as if I’ve been putting on a facade or at least trying to. I’ve been being myself but a little bit less of myself let’s say a 5/10 on the Camilla Scale. A ten is normal school/home Camilla when I’m around people who I know and a one is a Phoebe (since I know she doesn’t read my blog anymore: P). I’ve been toning myself down.

I like to think that that might mean that people think of me in a different way so I could break free from my normal shortcomings. It was a theory. It didn’t work. I’ve been living with a fantasy that somehow a change of people/scenario will give me the ability to break free from the usual phrases which plague me. No such luck. If you look at the scenarios then the only constant is ME. I attract these phrases. Perhaps it’s because I don’t have enough hobbies? Or perhaps it’s because I don’t know enough people? I need to realise that there isn’t a problem with ME. The issue is that I don’t like being talked to like I’m inadequate.

Perhaps there was something behind the pain-in-the-ass nickname which one of the guys at CMC gave me. Chameleon. Yes my name does start with ‘C’ and it contains an ‘L’ and I’m similarly certain that he was trying to annoy me. It was more than that. I was trying to blend into my new situation. I stopped saying the weird things which are a distinct part of me and I thought about what I was wearing and I treated everyone with the upmost level of respect. Yet nothing changed. I still wasn’t invited to the birthday party (so to speak). I was there and I wasn’t there. There’s nothing more unpleasant than standing in a circle and realising that if I stepped back then the circle would close up and no one would realise that I’d left. How much does that hurt?

This morning I didn’t talk. It hurt to do so. I was quite literally speechless. Yet I still had a voice. People were lip reading what I was saying and trying to frantically guess what I was trying to mime out. They wanted to hear from me and they were willing to go the extra mile. I’m beautifully visible. In the centre of their line of sight. I love that. I love it that they see me and that they love me and all of my crazy kookiness. I don’t need to be a chameleon. It’s taken me a long time to realise that.

Tomorrow I’m going to show up to the production without Mascara on. I’m trying to use that as a metaphor for trying to blend in. I’m unique in that I don’t wear makeup. Usually I don’t need to have a facade I can just be ‘me’. It’s why I don’t wear makeup. I’m telling the world here I am and I’m just plain ME.

It’s an identity crisis. They seem to be common on this blog. So now you’ve read 850 or so words about my insecurities. I’m sorry about them but I don’t try to hide them. I like everything to be out in the open. It’s an issue which we have as human beings we’re on a constant search for something/someone better. Why do you think we have such a high rate of divorce? I’m evolving. I just realised that. I’m becoming someone who can survive in the dark world that I live in. Even though I’m changing I promise that I’ll never lose my idealistic views of hope.

3 GOOD THINGS

*Not needing to speak to be noticed.

*Almost finishing Eco!!! Only 6 pages left.

* Beautiful Éclairs.