you don't have to always like your friends
today i took the trash out in my shorts and long, matrix-style coat. a flock of birds flew up above me in the cobalt blue sky and i saw the dimly flickering stars behind them.
"i am going to get foundation today", i absent-mindedly tell my friend over the phone. the concealer i was using before ran out, and it was time to get a base product. and a face brush!
"you should really go with something better, like dior. try it! the formula of the so and so foundation is mousturizing, and you don't even need much of it...", my friend excitedly exclaims in my headphone.
i eye the plastic bottle in brightly lit sephora. i guess i like the image of myself having a luxurious foundation, it would look nice and sleek on the bedside table and it cannot really be bad, can it? having tried it before, it was either too yellow or too pink.
"...and you have aging skin now" - oh do i now? - "...i mean not aging-aging, but you know, you're not twenty anymore", she continues.
i bend down and try the lightest shade of the dior foundation. a gulp of yellow liquid slides on the top of my hand. jaundice, just like i thought. i move over to a different bottle, round this time. a pea of pink liquid squirts onto my hand, i gently buff it out with my finger.
"It's yellow on me"
"Try 1.5, and make sure it says N, which stands for neutral. You could also try a cool shade" - she replies. She is sure I need the foundation she thinks I need. I had tried 0.5 N, it had been too yellow.
my head feels more tight than before, i'm annoyed and things are being pushed onto me.
a moment of introspection here: before, i would probably say something along the lines of, "i have decided what i want already". i would make sure my friend knows that i do not want advice, and she would maybe feel unappreciated and i would get more riled up than the situation warranted.
today, though, was different. i felt that my friend just wants to say what foundation she thinks is best. she tends to give advice excitedly, when it gets too controlling or condecending i speak up, but mostly i just let her do something she likes.
i don't have to like it. i don't have to always like the way my friend expresses everything. i don't have to loudly disagree, either.
another person is allowed to exist in the universe, going though their story, being the main character of the book of their life, they are allowed to have quirks. i am, too.
i feel sad because of something else, at peace, and alive. 719