Last week I was sat on the train like a normal
person and, as far as I was concerned, being completely inoffensive. I’d scored a window/table pew so was feeling victorious, I wasn’t taking up more room
than my allotted seat allowed, I'd smiled politely at my fellow commuters and on
this occasion I wasn’t even on my phone in the god damn Quiet Carriage. Yet
when I whisked out my make-up bag, a full tote of cosmetics and my tweezers,
there were some raised eyebrows around the table, and not just my freshly plucked
ones.
I happily scattered the table with cotton wool
and bottles of lotion alike, removed the days make up and reapplied my war-paint without a care in the world. Yet around top-lashes mascara time, I noticed I was getting some seriously condemning glances. What? I know my
un-make-up’ed face can be offensive after a day’s wear and tear, but there was a dog on this train wearing a jacket so ya know, staring priorities people. It was only when I pulled
out the tweezers and started plucking away (at my eyebrows) that I really got the
impression my behaviour was NOT on. Men trying to look away from me, the girl who
wasn’t born with mascara’ed eyelashes and a rosy glow like their girlfriend (sorry
fellas, check her top draw and you might find some heavy-duty potions you
didn’t know she relied on), women looking appalled that I would dare to do
something so classified, in public – I was ruining the illusion for everyone!
Something I had thought was more than acceptable –
full beauty regime on the train (can I add this was for economical use of my
time, not because I am homeless) – was clearly crossing a line. I had gate-crashed
social boundaries. I was THAT person. This blog knew something I didn't. I packed up my
Maybelline before I could say “No I was not born with it” and dashed off the
train into pastures safer. Bus etiquette I was surer of, there wasn’t a
hope of doing make-up on there #speedbumps.
"But My Mum Says..."
I’m fairly certain that as a child I assumed
all adult people had the same idea of what is and isn’t acceptable. The same
understanding of ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’, of ‘Should’ and ‘Shouldn’t’. The same moral
code, the same set of values and the same boundaries with regards to social etiquette. So if my Mum said it wasn’t okay to watch X Files aged 10
on a school night (she did say that, it wasn’t okay), in my mind my friends Mums probably thought it too. If a friend was
allowed to watch X Files, there was something hideously wrong with their family
and their parent’s entire moral constitution.
Yet in reality, those boundaries our parents laid out for us as kids are a lot more fluid than we at the time believed. As I have grown up (getting there) I have realised
that no, other people don’t all have the same idea of right and wrong, and
they certainly don’t all think the same. At first I found this genuinely shocking, and as
an outspoken minor I shouted at a lot of people a lot of the time when they
didn’t agree with me. “What do you MEAN its okay to eat cold beans out of the
tin? Why would you do that? What's wrong with you?!” And I would proceed to
tell myself that the friend towards whom my outrage had been directed was
“weird” and carry on thinking my own set of values, however, were spot on.
Skip forward to my mid-20’s and I’ve (thankfully) realised
that different doesn’t equal bad and for the most part I can empathise with
differing opinions and outlooks, as most of us can. Maturing into
someone who understands that right and wrong aren’t written in black and white
for all to see has however left me with a sense of uncertainty about my own daily actions, an
uncertainty I didn’t have back in the days when I thought everything I thought and did
was defo right.
I’m not talking about the big things, I’m fairly
confident of my own fundamental values in as much as they are in sync with what I want out of
and value in life. I love listening to people with different outlooks to my own and continue to
challenge myself on mine, but when you're nearing 30 (Woah! Woe) you tend to be more self-assured. Instead I am talking about the
small stuff, you know the stuff we aren’t meant to sweat.

Now that I am a grown up (getting there),
the variations and differences in the way the people I meet conduct themselves
just continue to grow and the answer to right and wrong continues to leap
further away from me. The upshot is though, I don’t care if what I am doing is
different to what you would do. I don’t care if you think I am weird when I
walk to the shop with my cuppa' in my hand (only done this once btw and I was a student so…).
And I really don’t care if you don’t want me to do my eyebrows on the train, my
time is limited okay!
Boundaries are ever-changing and largely
subjective, so as much as we will all sometimes wonder about what ‘other
people’ think and do, there is no need to care if you are confident of who you
are, confident enough to be true to yourself. Provided your actions don’t hurt
anyone else or have any negative repercussions, then go running with your
rollers in, if that’s what you want to do! We have the freedom to create our own boundaries within our own remit and if someone doesn’t like it,
they can move carriages.*
* It should be noted that two minutes after drafting this I took the rubbish out in my not so chic pyjamas and bumped into my neighbour. I was comfortable, he was not. I doubted my thinking this was an okay thing to do for a few seconds! Dammit.
* It should be noted that two minutes after drafting this I took the rubbish out in my not so chic pyjamas and bumped into my neighbour. I was comfortable, he was not. I doubted my thinking this was an okay thing to do for a few seconds! Dammit.
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