The problem with being a child performer is that you learn to put on make-up at an early age in a fashion that enables your facial features to be seen from the nose bleeds of a white-lit auditorium.
Breaking those kind of habits is a tough gig.
I feel I need to step away from the bronzer - I caught a glimpse of myself the other day and in normal daylight, it looked like I had gone native - that or I was secretly a chimney-sweep.
I need to put down the mascara - Eyelashes should not double as a fringe.
And I need to back away from the illuminator. I'm my own traffic directing device on a heavy-handed day.
It's hard to get used to the naked reflection staring back - and naked is how it feels. I feel exposed, vulnerable and self-conscious. I feel worried that some is going to capture a "stars without make-up" picture of me and plaster it across the 'book.
But for me, entering the make-up free zone is a challenge. A personal challenge to feel comfortable in my own skin - but beyond that, it is a challenge seeking more than comfort, more than acceptance, more than tolerance. It is an attempt for me to step back from the garishness that can all too easily invade The Party. Recently The Party has felt like a whirling, possessed carousel. On this carousel horses with hollow eye-sockets bray shrilly - the spinning is round and round and up and down and out and in. The lights that flash snap red and blue-black - blindingly and leaving spots echoing in my vision. And, like the captive I have become - I become part of the garishness, talons and fangs and course skin. The undertone that undermines sweeps dizzily alongside me. This is not The Party I had come in search of. This is the carousel I must escape.
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