I Don't Need Make-Up!

In my new blog 40 The Unforgivable Number there will be moments where I give my opinions and along the way some useful advice. In lieu of Mother's Day, I want to share some motherly advice my mom once gave me.

After a horrible divorce and some pretty bad blind dates, I was ready to throw in the towel and dive into a pint of cookie dough ice cream. My mom was no stranger to the dating scene; she was left single with six kids when my dad ran off with his 'escort.' She had seen the way her new dates reacted when she confessed to having kids (she never gave an exact amount). The look of fear: where the guy’s mouth sort of twists in one corner and drops dramatically in the other, or the eyes that keep searching for the nearest exit. No amount of sweet talk could fix this.

Ice cream is okay, she would never get in the way of comfort food, not this Italian mother. No, her goal was clear: cry until you feel better (could take days), eat until you’re full (tricky to say when ice cream is involved), and never let yourself ‘go’. In other words: moderation. If you must eat, don’t eat the whole darned container full; and cry, but fix your make-up – and often. She feared that I would get depressed and no longer take care of myself.

She would point to some of my ‘happily married’ friends and notice how they no longer watched what they were eating, or stopped coloring their hair (nor combed it in some cases), and worst of all – they no longer bothered to wear make-up! The most dreadful of sins! No stranger to make-up, my sister was covering my dark under eye circles with Merle Norman cake concealor when I was still in grammar school. The kids thought I had two black eyes.

So whether you are happily married or hope to be, always, always take care of yourself. Don’t let your roots show, put on a little color when you are out shopping, go easy on the desserts, where clothes that you feel good in, and dab on some of that expensive perfume you are saving for a special night because it might BE tonight!