Man…what was I thinking?

By
Mindy
Published: October 22, 2009Posted in: Family Life, General/Miscellaneous, Health and BeautyComments: 16Tags: , , , ,

Have you ever looked at an old picture/video of yourself and thought, what in the world was I thinking?  More specifically, did you used to think that you used to be ‘all that and a bag of chips’ and suddenly became aware that you weren’t even ‘some of that and a single chip’?  Not even a frickin’ frito. 

My mom brought me my wedding dress the other day from its semi-permanent residence in her spare closet, which prompted me to get out the ol’ wedding videos and view them.  I grabbed up my daughter, who is obsessed with all things wedding-white as any self-respecting 6 year-old girl would be, and giddily sat down on the couch ready for the precious walk down memory lane.  Avery smiled up at me and said, “I bet you were so pretty, mommy.”  I smiled down at her and hit the Play button.

OMG.

A little back story here.  I was married in 2000, not that long ago, right?  Right…too recent to be retro-cool but just long enough ago for my hair, clothes and makeup to be excruciatingly embarrassing.  The video starts at the rehearsal and that’s when my humiliation began. 

First of all, my dress was so weird.  It was this purple and white gingham sleeveless number with an empire waist.  And it was short.  Seriously short.  I’m pretty sure anybody standing below the platform altar saw a part of me that they never imagined they would see.   But it gets worse.  My hair.  My hair was so blonde and frizzy.  I should explain that I have very curly hair; somewhere between 3a and 3b if you’re a curly girl.  If you’re not, that’s code for “pretty dang curly.”  It has taken me all of 33 years to figure out how to style this mop of a do.  I obviously hadn’t figured it out yet back in 2000 because I was sporting some gigantically frizzy hair.  Did I mention it was really blonde?  Lastly, and perhaps even more obviously distressing than the brillo pad on top of my head was my makeup.  You guys, the blush.  It was so mauve.  And defined.  My cheekbones were so angular I looked like a 1986 magazine cover model.  In the year 2000.  Apparently, I had recently learned the “contouring” technique and took full advantage of my newly acquired knowledge.   It was bad.

Now, before everyone jumps on the “love yourself” bandwagon and I get barraged with comments about it, understand this:

The wedding was a different story…I looked smokin’ hot.  It goes without saying that someone else had done my hair and makeup.  No brillo pad or uber-contoured cheekbones in sight.  I was a blushing bride in the full sense of the word and my daughter’s face when she saw me march down that aisle in my beautiful sparkly princess dress was priceless.

I did get quite a chuckle out of the first half of that video.  It was humorous, in a bone-crushing humiliating sort of way.  I’ve come to realize that aging is a very interesting process of time.  It’s almost indefinable.  Probably one of the most universal beliefs about time is that nobody remembers it passing.   I think that’s why it can be so shocking to see pictures from the past.  It’s so hard to imagine that our clothing, hair and makeup can be so “dated.”   I don’t remember looking so bad because at the time, it wasn’t.  At least, I think so.  Oh, God, I hope so.  But, time passes and trends change and luckily, we have the pictures to laugh at later on. 

I will say that I didn’t take passing time and wedding photos into consideration when picking out my trends to follow…if I did I certainly wouldn’t have been sportin’ that mauve blush.

Love to all, Mindy

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