Beauty Is.

In Costa Rica, the whole beauty routine felt pretty pointless.

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There was no use doing my hair, because the heat would just wreck it or the rain would just drench it.

There was no use putting on make-up, because it would just melt off.

And there was no use wearing anything but tank tops, because it was so blasted hot all the time.

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Hair. Make-up. Clothes. - All pointless.

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And so, after only a few days, I stopped messing with it.

Completely.

And I found that only a few days after that, I stopped looking in the mirror as much.

And then, just a few days after that, I found myself not really thinking about the whole beauty routine thing at all.

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And yesterday, riding the bus to San Jose, I realized with a little surprise that I hadn't even thought to care about any of it that morning.

I had completely forgotten.

completely.

forgotten.

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And you know what? I love that.

It feels like freedom,

it feels like health,

it feels like rest.

And when I get back to the states, I'm going to try my best to hold on to this mindset, because to me, it feels like a different kind of beauty.

Because true beauty, I think, is the ability to forget ourselves.

And I want that kind of beauty to be first in my life.

The kind of beauty that spends time and energy seeing other people, rather than the kind that puts so much focus on how others will see me.