For the last several months, I rarely leave my house. I know this is for the best and it’s what we all need to do in order to slow the spread of the pandemic. And I’ve complained a lot about staying home and the mental toll that has taken on me. But there are other things I’ve noticed about staying inside that have been getting to me. While I’m not going out and seeing people, I’m not really taking as much care or effort in my appearance.
I’m still doing basic things so it’s not like I have skipped washing my hair for weeks or that I’m not clean. I shower daily, wash my hair regularly, use lotion, and do basic beauty maintenance. And there are some beauty things that I can’t accomplish on my own or do not have the skills to do that I understand I can’t do (I have no talent with doing my own brows or pedicure so I’m not worried about that). I haven’t had my hair cut since March, but I might do a light dusting trim to get some of the split ends off (I have discussed this with a hairstylist so I know what to do and I won’t be really cutting my hair). And I did some at-home color earlier this year because I wanted to cover the grays in my hair.
I really needed to color my hair again, so I did color it at home (with salon color from my stylist) yesterday. It’s still not as good as when it’s professionally done, but it is better than nothing.
And even with the little bit of color that I was able to add to my hair, it made me feel so much better about myself. I haven’t really been making an effort with how I look, and it was getting to me. I hated seeing how many gray hairs were in my hair and how it just didn’t look or feel like me. So getting a bit of a color refresh was something that I really needed to do. I hope that I will be able to have it professionally done the next time I need it, but if not I know I won’t wait as long this time to buy some dye and I’ll do it myself for the third time.
Making an effort with my hair did perk me up a bit. And then I focused a bit on my clothes. Just like with other things, I’m not making much of an effort with my outfits each day. I’m almost always wearing yoga capris and a tank top. I don’t need anything else for just sitting in my house. Technically, I don’t have to even wear that much, but I don’t believe in wearing the same thing all day that you slept in. So I do always change my clothes in the morning. But I’m not feeling cute with what I’m wearing. My outfits feel very utilitarian and not stylish. Part of it is that I know I gained weight and don’t want to try on my clothes because I’m scared of how I’ll feel. But I do need to put more effort into myself.
Just because I’m spending almost all my time alone in my house doesn’t mean I shouldn’t care. I should care about how I feel about myself, even if nobody else sees it. I can dress cute if I want to or make an effort with makeup just for fun. Maybe I should take this time to experiment with makeup and hairstyles because nobody will see my mistakes. I can’t just be in a rut with not caring about myself beyond what needs to be done for hygiene. It’s hard for me to think about doing things for me when I usually make an effort for someone else or because I’m going out to do something fun. But because I don’t see this pandemic ending soon, I need to learn how to practice self-care just for me and not because someone else might be seeing me.
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