manifesto: youth

I've been thinking about and thanking the world that I am still young, and I have made a manifesto for myself. It goes like this.

[EDIT: ...That first sentence wasn't grammatical, was it?]

I will not wear eye makeup. ♥ I will wear blush. ♥ I will take it easy on the bright lips. ♥ I will have long hair for as long as I am young enough.

Because

• My 80-something grandma has never worn eye makeup. My eyes don't really need it (eyelashes especially), and I don't need to add physical stress or give wrinkles any encouragement by pulling my eyelids (especially because I have to tug on them every day to put my contact lenses in).
  
• I can't look "pretty" once I'm past my youth because the word is inherently youthful, so I'd rather take advantage of it now, as long as I can. I'll work on the adjectives "striking" and "fierce" when I look older.
• Similarly, I have really horrific memories of an old classmate's mom's hair, which went down to her waist when she was over 50. Not that I'm saying no one can pull it off, but I don't want to go down that path of failing at long hair and scaring children. I also really dread having that "you look really young until you turn around" effect. So I am aiming for short hair later, long hair now. As long as I can grow it. Which is why I am going to endure a mullet phase this school year. College hasn't been very kind to my hair so far, anyway. (The very slow wash-once-a-week experiment was not a pretty sight; I can deal with another year of hair hell.)