Finding Beauty
Renata
Why Finding Beauty?
Why beauty? Well, I’ll start with a little background. I grew up on an Air Force Base where my father was a Fighter Navigator (think Top Gun’s Goose). Fashion and great hair weren’t really at the forefront of anyone’s consciousness in a world navigated mostly in uniforms and by utilitarianism. Even my civilian mother, who was young and beautiful, typically lived her life in t shirts and sweats – save for every Sunday morning at church when the peak of fashion for my mother was an 80s t shirt dress with a hand sewn ruffle around the bottom with a homemade matching giant hair bow (her penchant for making a dollar stretch is a story for another time, but you guys are going to LOVE my momma). If we were extra lucky on a Sunday, we all matched. We lived our lives in hand-me-downs or homemade clothes, and we never knew any different. I loved growing up in the military but knew I wanted something different for my life. I fell in love with music and Hollywood and at age 10, I was very sure that I was going to grow up to be a famous singer or actor and have the best hair in the world. That, my friends, is all that mattered to me at my young age and while I do have a decent voice – I failed to consider the fact that I would need to overcome some significant stage fright be able to make a life on stage.
I was a dreamer, head-in-the-clouds avoider of reality for one reason alone – I had a fairly tumultuous childhood. I was fed, clothed, and sheltered but life aside from that was a bit tough emotionally. Both my parents loved me, but they had a really hard time loving each other. They argued and yelled often and though my father has mellowed significantly with age – I always felt as though I was walking on eggshells, just trying to avoid his next moment or outburst. Just so you don’t think this is a bash on Dad post, he loved me, and I knew it – and in my adult years he’s apologized more than once for who he was in my youth. Like many military men he had exceptionally high standards and combined with a hereditarily beastly temper, it was best for me to steer clear. One way that I could do that was to spend literal hours in front of the mirror, doing my makeup or fixing my hair. Unlike my actual genius sister, I certainly wasn’t interested in spending that time with my nose in schoolwork and I didn’t care to join my baby brother in his Ramstein listening sessions in his room, so makeup and hair were the perfect escape. I would fix my hair and my makeup and spend hours out of the way, oblivious to whatever disfunction was occurring between my parents downstairs.
Naturally, beauty became the thing I was drawn to. Over the years, beauty has continued to be my escape from whatever the world throws at me and I have enjoyed passing that on to my clients. My sweet clients have come to me amid fertility struggles, in the middle of divorces, after the losses of parents or spouses, after a devastating diagnosis, or any other mess you can think of. For the two hours or so that they are with me, it is my goal that they not walk away without feeling beautiful. Not only has beauty been a blessed escape from the mess of life, but it has also over the years became a lot of the way I minister to others and the most effective way to minister to me.
I like to find beauty in the places you don’t always recognize it. You see, I didn’t marry a Military Man but clearly the love of a man in uniform took deep root in my heart during my military brat years – did I mention I grew up on Nellis Air Force Base where the Thunderbirds are based? The Thunderbirds are the Air Force’s PR and recruitment mission – so exceptionally handsome men in uniform (they put the prettiest faces up front, you know……) were very present in my childhood (go google a picture of the Thunderbird pilots ASAP). One of my best childhood friend’s father was the Thunderbird Lead Solo at the time. Pete – if you’re reading – I apologize for my 12-year-old-self staring. Whew……back to what I was saying.
I didn’t marry a military man, I married another man in uniform (and for the record, no one has ever looked better in blue). The path we have chosen to walk as a family is rocky and at times, a dark one, but there is still beauty to be found in the darkness. Those are the moments I look for beauty or try to create beauty in order to cope. I’m making the commitment to watching closer and to looking for the beauty in the moments and then, in the moments when I can’t find any – I will try to create it. I hope you’ll join me in finding beauty in the obvious and not so obvious places. I’ll teach you how to do the easiest winged eye liner (over 35-year-old eyes included!), why you really are a hat person, what colors you should be wearing, what color your hair should be, and how to fill in your overplucked 90s brows, but I also plan to show you how to highlight beauty in the messy things and even how to create it in the ugly moments that life throws at us.
