Ever wonder how people end up discovering and doing their life's work? How do they find their "calling"? Here is my story, how I chose or was chosen to become an esthetician.
I was born a sensitive, introspective child. I was also the first girl following five brothers! You might think that this would somehow single me out for becoming "girlie". I did the opposite, I played with the boys. Although unconventional, I was fine until I reached adolescence when I was supposed to figure out how to look and act like a girl. I was clueless. I kept hoping and praying that my hormones would deliver the curves that would make it obvious that I was a girl. Alas, the hormones didn't do a lot. This was the sixties and "androgenous" style of clothing was in. My brother's girl friends (who had the right curves) pulled off the look with aplomb. I looked just like my brothers. It pained me to look as lost as I felt. I withdrew into myself that year as we began seventh grade at a new school.
Then, sometime over the summer I began experimenting with eye liner. I practiced for hours in front of the mirror. I was starting to get control over the application process and was looking, dare I say, softer. I kept exploring, adding a thin white line above the black line, adding little lines below the lower lid to make little "hair" marks which we called "twiggies" named after the english model Twiggy. Experimenting with pale lip colors. The results were transformative.
In September I began the eigth grade. Students who had met me the year before and had ignored me came up to me to ask me how I did my makeup. All of a sudden I was no longer invisible.
Fast foward from the eighth grade to age twenty seven. I had graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Psychology. I had worked for the Colorado Division Of Employment as a Peer Counseling Coordinator until the funding dried up. Then while I was back in New York, my mother died suddenly of a stroke. Losing one's mother is difficult at any age but at age twenty seven I got lost again. I didn't feel that I had found any significant gifts or contributions that I could make to the world. And yet, I did have the capacity to listen to people, to validate them. To honor them. And there was this talent with makeup.
As lost as I felt during this time I recalled times during college when I would comfort a friend by putting makeup on her. I figured looking good was a first step to feeling better. And so in the midst of my sadness I chose to enroll in a cosmetician program which would allow me to become a licensed esthetician and makeup artist. I speculated that perhaps there were women out there who felt as I had felt that I could offer my skills to for creating a softer more attractive look for. I also saw that there was opportunities working with makeup, it allows you to experiment with different "looks" and express different aspects of who you are. Also, because it washes off, it can be freeing in the experimental phase of transitioning on the path to becoming who you are or wish to be.
I graduated from Michael Taylor's Institute in 1981 and several years later I opened the Jamie Gordon Skin Care Studio. But that is not the end of the story. The story continues as I and my clients face the aging process, menopause, and the desire to hold onto our outer beauty as we continue to cultivate the inner truths we practice. It has not been an easy path. I continue to read and test new programs, looking for answers which I can share with my clients. In many ways I feel that I lost my way again, and I am emerging as a new me. This path of mine does reveal itself if and when I get quiet enough to listen to the whispers. I share this story with the hope that it will give you motivation to take the best and gentlest care of yourself and your body. And hey, a little embellishment can do a women good!
