Eyelashes & Fungus

So it was late on a Thursday night and I was prepping for an incredible, big weekend and I wanted to tap into my inner Angelina Jolie.  I always, always go to this cheap, little, ghetto nail place just around the corner.  You know the kind of place that is using paper towels as toilet paper, peeling stripped out paint hanging from the walls, and you might wonder if the cosmetologist licenses were legit.  It was a risk. It was the dollar menu of Miami nail places. No appointment necessary. Quick beauty without the cost.  No returns accepted. 

I was getting my mani refill on.  (Let me please insert that I have been going consistently to this nail place for several years now, but for the sake of time and busyness, I had just recently gone back to acrylics.) So this girl next to me started talking about how va-va-va-voom fake lashes were.  And I could clearly see another girl in front getting her lash game on. Perfection. She gave me the lash lowdown…protect them like they were your new baby…don’t get them wet. (What were they Gremlins?) Sleep on your back so they don’t touch your pillow.  Then she gave me all the wows of this spontaneous beauty journey.  Instagorgeous.  Instabeauty.  #modelstatus. You don't even have to wear mascara.  Kim Kardashian in seconds. All this for $20 (at that moment I should’ve listened to that tiny screaming voice telling me it was too good to be true).  

But of course I didn’t. 

Beauty was calling.  And I was naively sprinting to her luring call.  

And within less than 5 minutes I was superglam stunning.  It was love at first sight. I was staring at model me—instant upgrade.  All in just seconds. And all for only $20.  Where had these babies been all my life? (or so I thought…) 

I was told they would drop off one by one after about two weeks.  Two weeks came.  Two weeks went.  Three weeks.  Four.  Over a month.  I tried pulling.  Prying.  Praying. And I got one. It was half off.  And half on. These lashes were lifers. Adhered with super glue or something else that only GI Joe could fix.  But now it was dangling there.  Half on…half off.  What could a girl do? And it was horrible. So I got it all soapy and wet and I pleaded and pulled as gently as possible and I prayed, but this overwhelming pain pinched and possessed me.  The falsies had come off, but so had some of me.  It was the worst. Now I was like an alley cat that had gone through some sort of dark scrawl clothed in missing, mangled fur.   Honestly it had never occurred to me that the Lash Queen had glued them right on top of my real lashes. My beautiful, healthy, long real lashes..waaaa…waaaa…I needed Tyra Banks for this job. These lashing weren’t going anywhere anytime…maybe ever… 

A friend encouraged me to try water.  I stood in the shower until I was a wrinkled, raisiny mess.  Water drenching my lashes and eyes and every last inch of my face. Yeah. Nope. Nada. Uh Uhh Gurrlll.

What had she glued this false beauty on with?  Gorilla Glue? Tar? Cement? At this point I wondered why I hadn’t thought through this a little better.  Where were you now supermodel Christina? Maybe called the lash experts. Did lash experts even exist?

Almost another month went by and little by little a few fell off, but not without pain and not without losing my own precious homegrown lashes.  And I began to wonder if I would be turning from mangled alley cat to a raging case of mange.  2-3 scrappy eyelashes here and there lining my hazel eyes. Or worse…I wondered if there would even be any lashes left…at all.  And yeah regret ravished me.  I was all filled up with knots. What had I done?

…pause this part of the story for a moment and fast forward about 3 weeks…

Remember the nails. The whole reason I had gone to No No Nails in the first place because they were the cheapest place in town. I was beyond O-V-E-R these acrylics. They kept lifting and I could do absolutely nothing while wearing them.  And freshly out of the battle of the false lashes, I vowed to NEVER go back to Ghetto Nails.  And so I manhunted the nicest salon I could remember.  I would’ve given up Christmas at this point just to be done. 

And the nail dissection began.  The nail tech was freaked at how thick these nails were and for the next hour and a half even after soaking them, we fought the second battle of the beauty. And it hurt like a raging beast. I prayed that she wouldn’t break through the now barely there, thin nails to the skin underneath. Little remained of what had once been my own healthy nail. And after digging and scraping and buffing and filing we made breakthrough.  Only remnants remained.  Thin, barely there nails, filed down to the finger, length and thickness no longer, obviously unhealth had set in, and 6 nails had fungus. Brownish, green, funky, ugly, I-was-like-ewww-I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening-to-me fungus. It was small, but it was a part of me.  

We painted them baby pink and I thanked God that there was something to paint at all.  

Finally, I found a real eyelash bar that specialized in lash beauty. And spent an hour while they tried to figure out why exactly these lashes refused to detach.  A lot of soaking, rinsing my eyes, and praying that some of me would remain when it was all said and done. My God…I prayed…would this glue affect my eyesight? Not even Rambo could’ve touched these tiny eye statues. And I did manage to save a few of my own precious lashes. Jesus did love me. 

And 5 hours of my life wasted on achieving beauty.  And so I contemplated.  

Wasn’t there a life lesson in here somewhere? 

Don’t we make these quick, unthinking decisions all the time?  Fake nails or fake lashes or fake friendships or quick boyfriends or spending sprees or sudden moves that we don’t really research or get to know or friend and find out about first. We are addicted to the rush of spontaneity and instant gratification. We want it and we want it now. Because we are searching for what will make us feel beautiful or look better or bring us the pursuit of happiness at the moment. Choices made hastily to fix something we are yearning for…beauty or relationship or self image.  And regret. And they guarantee us happiness.  But not really.  And they fix us suddenly…with scars and wounds and fungus and missing pieces all for hours and hours of what we thought we needed.  All for something we thought we were searching for. 

And emptiness and scraps and scratches and battle wounds or the pieces of our broken heart are the remnants.  

But you are SO much more.  You are life and breath and freedom and hope and stories and inspiration, not desperation. 

Don’t settle.  Don’t be cheap. Don’t get anxious. Wait & search & hope.  Yearn for the best.  Good things come to girls who wait. 

This year…girls take off the nails…remove the lashes…be you.  BEYOUTIFUL.  You are.  More than enough.  You are.  Sufficient.  You are. You.  And. That. Is.  All.  You.  Ever. Need. To. Be. 

Fancy

I was a senior in college with a head full of dreams, starry eyed and sheltered, only a semester away from becoming a real, living, breathing certified elementary teacher. It was a Thursday night in October and I received a call asking if I was interested in picking up an off-campus babysitting job.  Sure. I needed the money.  I called the number back.  A woman answered the phone in her raspy voice.  Her voice was worn; she bluntly informed me that she was a dancer at Sassy Reds and needed someone to come tonight so she could work.  Could I be on the north side of town in 30 minutes?  I was skeptical.  The north side of town was not known for its’ rainbows and unicorns.  It was sketchy to say the least. Dark. Bad stuff happened...things I had only heard about...happened...on the north side of town.

A half an hour later, I knocked on the cracking, stripped paint of a delapidated shack of a house.  The door opened and there towering over me was a big hairy man covered in dark biker pants, tattoos on every last inch, and a black vest. Had I missed his Harley outside? Intimidated to say the least, trying to work up the nerve to walk in, I pushed myself forward.  A skin and bones woman with stringy blond hair and leathery, wrinkled skin, probably about 30.  But to me she looked like someone who had lived a long, long life. 

A quick intro of her daughter, a tiny replica of what her mama might have been decades ago, a blonde cherubim, unblemished, perfect skin, ragged, stained clothes, thick and yellowed with smoke. Her name was Fancy.  That Reba song rang heavy in my ears.  

And the next 5 hours marked my life. I had conversations with a 4-year old that sounded a whole lot more like a 18-year old, high school girl, who had already traded her virginal ways.  She talked about things even I was too naive to know. I was a Bible college girl.  She talked about mommy’s boyfriend and boyfriends and boys and the men who came and went from her house.   And the details of what these men liked to do. And then Fancy informed me she would be peeing in the bathtub that night as she took her bath. And I had no idea what I could say or do to make her life better or to change anything. Fancy made regular use of four letter words.  And how often she had new babysitters and how she was accustomed to strangers....and I stood there speechless, in complete shock, wondering if there was anything I could do and feeling more than helpless, wondering what kind of perfect, horrible, sheltered, Christian bubble I had been living in.

Past 10 o’clock and I noticed the roaches wouldn’t cross over the linoleum onto the carpet floors.  And there were plenty of them.  Those icky, fast-moving German cockroaches. And all I could do was hold Fancy and sing “Amazing Grace.”  And she asked me to sing it over and over and over again. 

Mama came home sometime after midnight, Fancy asleep, with her head on my lap, Dora still playing on the TV.  Biker dude at her side and mama told me it had been a good night.  She walked quickly into her room and reappeared with a Crown Royal bag from which she grabbed a wad of cash and wrote my number in crayon in the yellow pages.

Silently.  Thoughtful. I drove home. Up the stairs to my dorm room.  It was clean.  Quiet. Focused. My perfect little world.  Organized.  Put together.  A life on the brink of all my dreams and big ideas; my unicorns and rainbows.  Crawled in my bed, praying for and thinking about what would become of Fancy, that blonde cherubim, just a baby in a grown up world, and cried myself to sleep...

We live in a city where this is the reality for hundreds and thousands.  Literally look around you and you will see all the Fancy’s out there.  In the words of Reba, “Just plain, white trash...” but her name meant so much more.  See every little girl and every grown up girl deserves to know she can be more. And I believe, we could be the shapers of someone else’s future...the lifebringers...and storywriters...

In a just a few short months we will come together for “Unwritten” Inspire 

Conference 2016.  I believe that we each have a sister or a friend or an abuela or a hopeless teenager that’s never had anybody tell her she could be more or a single mom struggling to make it any way they know how, a dancer or a prostitute or an escort.  Our city is full of women who once were tiny, beautiful, unblemished “Fancy’s.”  What if you or I could help them write a better story, because they simply don’t know how to be fancy, purpose-filled, or fearless on their own?  We can fill the unwritten pages of their life with love and hope and a fantastic, amazing story. And they just need someone to believe in them.  Someone who will help them to change their story.  To write a better story.  To begin a new chapter.  Sponsor a sister, a stripper, a stranger.  Who will you sponsor?  Who will you bring? From this day forward, the past is gone, the future is limitless.  Our tomorrow UNWRITTEN.  

Hello 40. I love you.

Hello 40.  I love you.

I guess when I was younger I envisioned “30” would be a dark party stuffed full of Over the Hill balloons, canes, wrinkled up raisin looking people and tombstones decking out a black-trimmed cake.  But 30 came and it wasn’t that...not even at all. I had a baby.  Then another.  And they were scrumptious tiny morsels of love...kiss after kiss...sugary sweet little packages. They were life. Mommyhood taught me that there was so much more I was capable of giving. I ran a marathon and another and another.  I had a new awareness that there could be more. Limitations were breaking off. We can all be stronger than we think we are. We moved to a new city and another and another and finally we found our way home. We began to see newborn baby dreams emerge into viable identifiable parts of our everyday. There were moments of heartbreak and hurt. I wished I did not have a heart to break sometimes.  Humanity was harsh. 

Some days I could think only of quitting and running away.  When hurt was so deep that it felt as if my heart might shrink or explode into millions of tiny pieces. There would be people I would spend hours loving and building relationship with...playdates with kids...family vacations...late night counseling... only to watch them walk coldly out of my life without even a good bye.  

God has been unfailingly good even when I am not.  I have tried in weakness to live for myself.  In my deepest hurt I have attempted to run from God.  Pushing to escape the things that keep me safe and good...trying God and breaking down boundaries that keep me...pure and clean.  And in His love He has intercepted my stupidity every single time.  He has saved me from me.  Isn’t that what He always does?  I thank Him that I have never ran so far that I could not be rescued.  I guess we never really are.  But I know now You cannot run from hurt or from fear.  You must stare fear in the face and resist yourself.  Because we are better when we lose sight of us and pour our lives out for something excellent. All around us are people hurting and hopeless and unloved and abandoned who desperately need someone to care. The best life is the one we give away. Love can change anything.

  

And ten years happened in a blink.  

Today I remember a little curly haired girl who did not have words.  Hiding behind the big personality of others who knew exactly what to say.  A girl with speech problems and not an ounce of confidence.  

And then God intersected my life.

A bus drove to my house one day and brought me to church.  It was full of love and better.  People who taught me style and maturity, commitment and leadership, and how to love God and others. Showing me I was more and pointing me to destiny.  Poverty taught me to strive for more and kept me naiive. And that’s not always a bad thing. 

I had thought I would be a writer by now.  Some sort of Mr. Holland...working to compose his great symphony even as life and family and responsibility always swallow me up fiercely.  Seconds becoming minutes and minutes turning to days and months and years. You know it’s as if something infinitely greater is pressing for time and attention and us. We are mommies.  And athletes. And wives. Decorators. Teachers. Artists and counselors. Doctors and nurses. We are women.  We think we should be more and do more and we aren’t enough.  In fact we are superheroes...bright and shining stars to our children and our families and people who need us. At the end of the day, it is up to us to remind ourselves we are living the dream.

I believe I have the best life not because I’m luckier than anyone but because I built it. 

Our best thoughts should be limitless and we were meant to have imaginations that swim in the unthinkable.  Fresh dreams should burst constantly like juice from the reddest watermelon. 

40 is believing there is still good in this crazy world.  Sprinting into the next decade to love and change our city, to be a freedom fighter, and a rescuer of people.  

People tell me all the time they can’t run.  I don’t believe it.  We can do anything we put our minds to.  All things are possible.  Failure is inevitable.  Grace is sufficient.  Forgiveness is freedom.  Faith, hope, and love remain. The greatest is love. Choose love.

Hello 40. I think we’re going to be fearless. Let’s go birthday girl.

From Boyz to Men...Raising Our Boys to Be Men

I’m guessing it was long past overdue in keeping up with the Kardashians.  Maybe E! wrote it in the story long before any of us met Caitlyn, to not-so-subtly encourage the same sex theme Hollywood & government & universities everywhere & even Mr. President are hitting our nation hard with.  Perhaps Bruce yearned for that spotlight. Maybe he was tired of being the only K without fake boobs. It did seem over the years that surgical procedures were indeed catching. Maybe after decades of every single Kardashian female’s nip and tuck to look shockingly sexy and shockingly steamy and shockingly ageless and uhmmm...well shockingly Kardashian, not to mention the desmasculinization by the entire she-power--money--media--moguls--pop--culture--fashionista goddesses. Quite honestly, I’m sure none of us can even imagine another so influential household name in today’s world.  The only thing bigger than Kim could be Bruce Jenner becoming a woman. The set up couldn’t have been more elaborate.

They’ve shocked us every single step of the way.  Why would Bruce’s exploration to transgender truth and identity fulfillment and history-making reality show seem any different?  It would be a fascinating story.  It would indulge same-sex pride and dominance and unity in unprecedented measure.  And the emergent Caitlyn would be exactly what a nation struggling to grasp truth or identity would be enamored with. Actually a story that would wow the world and dominate our social media and isn’t that exactly what everyone wanted? 

But the truth is, it isn’t truth.  If you don’t believe me, catch just one episode of mainstream television and see firsthand as men are berated and idiotized and laughed at instead of honored and followed.  It is the abandonment of God. Man was created in the image of God.  Woman actually came from man...from man’s own body a rib was taken and then became wo”man.”  We relate to God as the ultimate man-figure, our superior daddy to the world. He was supposed to be the ultimate hero.  But instead a man who became a woman is our honored and brave “hero.” If men can now become women after hormone replacement and the scalpel and their own struggles, why choose a God who made us and shaped us and formed us in the womb?  Gender modification has opened the door to us not only changing what we think we lack but actually who we were created to be. 

Women, I’m all about being the she-roes we were meant to be, but this is an assault.  It is an full-frontal attack on our men...our husbands...and our fathers...and our little boys.  And so many times we win.  And wasn’t that the real message of feminism anyways? We cut them down and we tell them they are lacking and we criticize and we think we are right and better and smarter and more responsible.  We live the message that men are indeed idiots.  We forget to be thankful or to love them with our words and actions.  And we baby our little boys...never forcing them to grow up or to take responsibility or lead. What would our men look like if we actually began to tell them they are machismo and irresistible and manly and knights coming to our rescue and adored?  Maybe they would believe in themselves again. Maybe they would rise up and be men, instead of secretly wishing to be women. 

This is identity crisis.  If we accept the lie, then all men become women, we forget God, and the human race is faced without relationship or pro-creation. More than any other time in history, countless men are being incarcerated, jobless, without purpose, lacking initiative, unable to experience intimacy, filled up with porn and addiction. Men are portrayed as partying, irresponsible, purposeless, panty-wearing pansies. Instinctively, males are purpose-driven and without purpose and affirmation and reason and freedom, they are bound by their habits and become noncommittal thugs.  Women if you’re wondering where all the good men went, maybe they got tired of the cutting down, spitting on, disadored, and criticized.  

My 7 year old little man is art and music and Legos and matchbox cars.  He has a keen eye for fashion and can spend legit time in front of the mirror getting his blonde cut just right, but it is up to me and his daddy to teach him to fight and lead and achieve and conquer and live in manly, God-filled purpose. Children were made to explore.  But if their journey leads them to the top of the Empire State Building, it doesn’t mean we allow them to jump. Our children become who we tell them and shape them to be. It is up to me to raise him from a boy and give him every opportunity to emerge a man. 

The things we give ourselves to, will shape us.  The mind can go as far as we push it.  We were made to be fantastically fulfilled with freedom and light and life. I choose truth. I choose my men to be supermen...strong...decisive...fearless...heroes. 

Bruce...Caitlyn...you are loved and you are beautiful. There is purpose and true identity. It is found when we stop thinking about who we want to be and remember who Christ created us to be.  

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”  John 8:32  

Que Sa Ra Sa Ra...Remembering Beauty & Grace

These words had to get out while they were raw and fresh and emotional and unimaginably full. Today I fly to Kansas City for the passing of my grandmother. 

Two days ago the world lost a saint and Heaven received an angel.  You were beauty and delicate grace.  

My growing years, you would wake before sunrise, singing Que Sa Ra Sa Ra Whatever Will Be Will Be as you prepped the coffee, juice, and toast with berry jam, before grandpa left for the wheat fields. There is something to be said of a woman who served OJ in long stemmed glasses and every meal on china and silver...pure elegance.

In the summers, when I was 6 or 7, you would gently lay me up on the counter top by the sink to shampoo my hair and massage and clean my tiny curls. Those 20 minutes were rich in love and the deepest affection. Thirty years later, the memories are warm and vivid of those hair washings.  There were trips to the clothing store to buy me patent leather shoes and new underwear and something girly. Or take us grandkids in the afternoon to get a Coke at the soda fountain or lunch at the Dairy Queen or maybe a little toy.  And baskets filled with fluffy bunnies and chocolate covered marshmallow yummies at Easter. It was never about what we got but how special and cared for you made everyone feel.

So much of what I wanted to become was because of you...the embodiment of all it meant to be a true lady. Your life was never drama (even when it might have been), and your presence brought richness to everyone around you. I never once heard you complain. 

Your beautiful, wrinkled, sun spotted hands worked the spring flowers, growing hundreds of happy baby-pink peonies, arranged and gifted to the church for funeral dinners or weddings or whoever might need a dash of joy at their occasion.  As well as countless meals for others in times of grief. Your life was given to others.

You were a china painting, housekeeping, oil painting, yodeling, guitar playing, sewing-your-own gorgeous fashion chic...style and class and beauty beyond measure.  Grandma ,you gave to the world without expectation of what you would get back. Your selflessness is a legacy and a rarity. 

Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa’s was that one childhood snapshot that brings a smile at any given moment even now the snow covered lights were shimmering Winter perfection...the presents under the tree, their own dazzling art show uploaded with glittery, frilly touches you had added to each package...everything always beautiful.  From chopped salad to Christmas ham to ordering ice cream for us from the Schwan man, your life sparkled excellence.

I will spend a lifetime not forgetting you Grandma. Thank you for making me and the people you knew and the entire world around you better and richer and perfect. If every life were lived as you lived yours, the world would truly be as it should.

“We are a tiny pencil in the hands of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.” ~Mother Teresa

Carolyn Mae Jamison thank you.  The story you wrote was full of love and excellence and I pray at the end of it all I live exactly as you did...poured out, elegant, kind, artistic, lovely.