An idea from my mother, which I remembered after a reading a similar idea on Gala Darling's gorgeous blog:

If you can't face the outside world without makeup on, you need to practice doing so.

I'm in a pretty made-up place at the moment. I've been sleeping late, rising early. Stress-eating and starving by turns. It's not a pretty place.

The day before yesterday though, a cab driver who was driving me to University gave me a compliment. He said I had a lovely face. And my reaction surprised me. Without a pause, I said, "That's just makeup and dark glasses". He laughed. I did not.

I thought about going in to work today without any on. It turns out I can work from home today, so I'm cheating a bit and just nipping to the grocery store and back with a bare, clean face. I'm not sure why this is difficult. I'm sure it 'shouldn't' be hard at all though, so here's to freeing up my face, and showing it as it really is.