The Five Stages of Grief: Makeup, Eye Infections, and Me

Stage 1: Denial

Last Tuesday night, the outer corner of my right eye hurt. I assumed I had something stuck in my eye, so I put a warm compress on it for about 20-30 minutes, and it felt better. Or so I thought. Wednesday morning, I woke up and the pain was worse. I went to the bathroom to get another hot facecloth, and when I looked in the mirror I saw my entire eyelid was red and puffy, as was the bottom of my eye.

Stage 2: Anger

I was so, so angry. I knew right away that an eye infection is bad news bears. I couldn't go to work if it was pinkeye, because, uh, I work with kids. And no one wants to work around someone with a contagious eye illness. Second, I would have to get rid of every single piece of eye makeup that may have touched my eye since Monday-Tuesday. Hell. To the. Naw. I was also about to go work out, too. If I didn't make it to Pure Barre, I'd be in the hole $10 for my missed class. And then whatever they charged me to fix my eye. And whatever it would cost to replace my beloved Noir Eyeliner and my brand new Smashbox Full Exposure Mascara. That mascara was brand new, straight from Birchbox/Smashbox, and I had been using it for MAYBE a week? MAYBE?

Stage 3: Bargaining

Okay, so maybe if it's not pinkeye, I can still use it? I didn't put on any makeup on Tuesday, so I could totally keep all my stuff, right? I was just hoping at this point it wasn't pinkeye. I was going to be okay with literally anything else. I went to the clinic, and the lady told me it was a stye, or an infected gland where your eyelash meets your eye, that looks like a giant pimple. She of course suggested throwing out all my eye makeup. My eye didn't look like a pimple: so that totally means I can keep my makeup, right??!

Stage 4: Depression

The lady at the clinic gave me some goop to put in my eye. Naturally, that meant no makeup. I went home and put the goop in my eye and avoided walking into the bathroom for awhile. I had to decide what to do with my eyeliner and my mascara. And then I remembered that I also put some eye shadow on the last time I put makeup on. WHEN DID IT START? WHEN DOES IT STOP? I avoided all of that and just took a nap.

Stage 5: Acceptance

In reality, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It was a simple enough fix. The Noir eyeliner was disinfected and sharpened. I got rid of the cheap eye shadow brush I had been using for the past few days (thankfully) since I left my Real Techniques brush at my boyfriend's place by accident. I somewhat reluctantly tossed my Smashbox mascara, but came to terms with the fact that every time I pulled it out, it came out in clumps anyway. I have a bunch of mascaras to use as backup and some to try. Things wouldn't be that bad. I could sleep in instead of getting up 30 minutes early to do my makeup. And when I'm finally done with the medicine, I can do some fun eye makeup as a celebration of my being infection/stye-free.

Basically, it's sucked. I have two more days of the medicine and it's annoying. Four times a day? Ain't nobody got time for that. But I will really be grateful when I can finally do full face makeup again.