Not Your Mother's Make-Up Drawer

The year was 1981 and I was the big five! Summer vacation was in effect and we would spend it in Damascus, Syria.My Te Te Sara hadn’t seen her eldest daughter, (my mum) nor her first grandchild, (me) since my parents boarded a plane for Washington DC.

My mum’s youngest sister was 16 and living at home. I followed her around like a kitten. She was so cool and mature AND she was allowed to wear makeup. One day I snuck into her room and made a beeline for her vanity. I opened the mahogany drawer and stifled a gasp; the ceiling could have fallen on me and I wouldn’t have noticed. The drawer was filled with rich magenta glosses, bright blushes, kohl liners, and soft brushes. I would spend the duration of the summer playing in my auntie’s makeup.

Fast forward 42 years: my passion for makeup has been as constant as my love of family. Makeup is the friend that keeps me company when my heart beats lonely, and that never browbeats me when i go radio silent. As 47 approaches, my only child is months away from graduating high school and is ready to venture out on his own, promting me to readjust my focus more fully on how i want to live out the rest of my years. And the truth is that I’m bloody terrified. When my anxiety overstays its welcome and I feel like I’m failing at life, I’m reminded that there’s a little drawer waiting patiently for me to open and play.
The products that came out to play today: Elf halo glow in shade 2, elf skin puff puff primer, & elf poreless putty primer ; NYX can’t stop wont stop medium olive; essence keep me covered warm shell; PF butter concealer light to medium; MUR blush bomb savage coral; alamar cosmetics colorette blush trio medium tan; essence sun club matt bronzing powder palette 10; loreal infallible 24 hour bronzer, cover girl warerproof lash blast mascara and primer, pixie eye pencil black cocoa; elf clear brow freeze and wow brow in deep brown; absolute NY glide & glam gel lip liner in terracotta n**e, W&W lock n shine in lotus petal; elf lip plumping gloss in mocha twist; milani make it last spray; Ciate London watermelon burst setting spray; W&W 5n1 essence primer + finish powder; elf Camo powder foundation light 210N.

How huge life decisions are made in my family. Real fu***ng talk 😂😂😂 ***ngsuck

It’s easy for us to scroll through feel good videos on You Tube and Facebook and get a quick high while binge watching strangers commit “good deeds”. What’s not so easy is putting down our phones, walking into our closets, driving to our local CVS or Goodwill, and exerting the effort to participate actively, rather than passively, or frankly not the f**k at all. And let’s not forget the post office.

Not Your Mother’s Make-Up Drawer is on a mission to amass a haul of gently used and new personal care products for 30-40 infants, children, and mothers currently receiving emergency and temporary housing and direct services in a Northern Virginia Family Care Shelter.

For information on how and where to send products and monetary donations, send an email to [email protected]

Let’s make some magic happen quickly!!

Feeling SUPER stoked for my meeting tomorrow with the Community Liaison for Annandale High School (my alma mater!) to discuss a solid partnership with NYMMD! Thanks to your generous product and apparel donations, students in need of some extra support will be able to attend prom after all!!

So grateful ❤️

Great morning, kindreds!! I want to give a supersoul shout out to Amanda aka and her two muppets for putting so much love into their care packages for the mission. The gorgeous goodies will be donated to , a D.C. based, survivor run and trauma informed human services organization founded by a true warrior, . Courtney’s House advocates for and provides direct services to child survivors of domestic s*x trafficking.

I’m cartwheeling to the clouds!!!❤️❤️❤️

Each of us is a survivor in our own right. The words we choose to describe our strengths, deficits, and inner nature can work to empower or deflate us. This applies to how we choose to describe situations and people outside of our locus of control. This includes the small, medium, and large humans and animals we care for on the daily.

If I’m honest, and God knows I work hard to remain transparent, my compulsion to control people’s reactions is as toxic as the sh*ttiness I feel when someone is attempting to control me. When I’m at my most intolerant, I can see myself from the outside behaving like a total as***le, barking orders, making passive aggressive comments, and being unloving as f**k.

My craphole behavior aligns perfectly with my feeling of total LACK of control when it comes to my finances, my living situation, and my intimate relationship. The more distrust and less faith I hold for my Creator’s plan, the more unloving and intolerant I am towards the people I love the most, including myself.

So now what? Honestly, I don’t know. If we’re anything alike, I guess we try to remain present and hold vigil with feelings of gratitude for the blessings in the now. We hug more and judge less. We direct our selfishness by helping others in meaningful ways. We invite the Universe to make our mind up for us when we’re just not getting it right.

And we declare openly our willingness to forgive. Ourselves. The ones who carved the deepest scars. The ones who took without asking. The ones who left without saying goodbye. The ones who weaved the most inextricable lies. The ones who left bruises on your skin that you learned to hide. The ones who couldn’t parent with proper boundaries. And if forgiveness feels like a foreign language with no tutor, all we have to do is quietly motion to the Universe to do the hard for us. This frees our hands and hearts to dig back into this blessing of a life.

Sending so much love your way.

Your sestra,
Dinah Jolie

I want to give a HUGE shout to an amazing human and her two munchkins for putting together a boatload of product donations for the . I am so unbelievably grateful and touched by your kindness. ❤️❤️❤️

|Empath’s Impasse|

Happy Friday, Love Bugs. There’s a difference between setting an emotional boundary and holding fast a grudge. I pray today we find the wisdom to know the difference. May it bring us healing.

Sending love ❤️