I accidentally went to my first day of class with no makeup on

I recently went to a concert with my boyfriend, and ended up leaving my makeup bag in his car. Because I go to school an hour from his home, I didn’t realize my makeup was missing until it was too late. By now it was evening, the next day was my first day of classes, and I had absolutely no makeup.

For years, I went with hardly any makeup (black eyeliner, mascara, concealer, and a little blush), but in recent times I’ve gotten quite into makeup, throwing a good amount of eyeshadow and lipstick into the mix as well. Now I’m not someone who gets hung up on appearances, and I wear jeans and t-shirts almost every day, but the first day of classes is a whole different kind of beast. True, I still don’t completely understand what contouring is, and I hate watching tutorials, but I do feel better about myself when I have makeup on and straighten my hair.

How I usually look. Nothing fancy.

I knew I would have to go without makeup at least for a day, until I was able to see my boyfriend and he could bring me my face-in-a-bag. Unfortunately, this day happened to be the first day of class, and I. Had. Nothing. (Except some Chapstick. That was all.)

However, until I could see my boyfriend again all I had on hand was a tube of chapstick and a semi-broken spirit.

I even tried to set an alarm so that I could run to Rite-Aid in the morning for mascara and concealer – if nothing else, I could survive with those – but, I didn’t carve out enough time, and ended up walking out the door bare-faced.

You can see the misery

On top of feeling insecure about not having my makeup, my allergies were flaring up horribly, causing my whole face to be red, and my eyes to be swollen. My boss even told me my eyes looked “funky.” Needless to say, I looked and felt awful.

Throughout my entire first class, I felt like I couldn’t even raise my head to make eye-contact with people. I was vulnerable – exposed. Those fifty minutes felt like forever. After class, I ran back to my dorm and slapped on the mascara and concealer I had just dropped $20 on, despite having both of those items in my makeup bag. I looked a little better, but at this point in the day, my self-confidence was shot, and nothing was going help.

Looking back on the day, I realize that no one besides me cared about what my face looked like. No one was pointing at me and laughing to their friends, or even staring at me. In fact, no one even gave me a second glance. But in today’s society, it is hard for women to convince themselves of this.

It shouldn’t matter how other people perceive us. It should matter how we perceive ourselves, and while I know that my appearance does not define my self-worth, I definitely no know that there is a huge correlation between how you look how you feel.