It is 6pm on a Friday evening or 2pm on a Saturday afternoon.

I organize my schedule, so I have ample time to arrange the necessities on my vanity table. I may not use all that’s there, but I never can tell what I will and will not use. Walking across my room, I then select my wardrobe of choice. It all has to do with style, color, and comfort. Then again, you can never go wrong with black attire.

It is 5:30 or 1:30pm and my tea is brewing inside my favorite mug. Two or three packets of sugar and a dip of cream. My laptop has its own spot on the table, where it displays the latest video uploads from my favorite YouTubers. Sometimes I find a playlist collection where I just hit play and let the dialogue and music serve as background noise as I prepare for what’s next.

I then set my tea down, turn on my table lamp, and begin to get ready.

Many people may not know, but I go on dates with someone new every evening or afternoon, depending on the day. This may seem like an extremely desperate way to go, but I’ll clarify by stating that every new date I go on is with a different character, a made up personality. I date myself. I date a new persona of mine that I’ve never met before. And I do this through my make-up art.

You might suggest I’m mirroring James McAvoy’s numerous character personalities in Split and you might be right, but I’m not one to go out and kidnap or hurt anyone. In fact, I don’t even venture outside my bedroom walls during this particular pastime. It’s just something I enjoy experimenting with in the comfort of my own space and mind.

Make-up art is another form of expressing your visions and it challenges your imagination and one of the beauties of it is that you actually become part of it. You live it. You breathe it. You are art. That is one of many things I try to remind myself every day, even when I don’t do a make-up session.

It’s not only a hobby of mine or a fun, creative way to exercise my art abilities, it is indeed a time to get to know myself better and to remind myself that, yeah, I have many talents and I’m open-minded and diverse. I’m a unique individual. I’m an original.

And so are all of you. A few or a bunch of you may not do make-up art or any kind of art, but because of who you are as an individual and as a student, athlete, daughter, son, sibling, mother, father, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandmother, grandfather, guardian, teacher, coach, or friend, you all have different attributes that make one outstanding piece of work. Not to mention how the diverse life you all prove you can live to the fullest, while overcoming and learning from the hardships that come your way. It makes up the different qualities you posses that make you who you are and that’s pretty special. I must say that those hardships really do build character.

If you’re really curious what I actually do during a make-up session, I get creative with my various natural and party make-up palettes and brushes and create a face that no one has seen before. Then I take selfies with my personas and share them with my friends. When I first started practicing make-up art, I titled my collection, “Make-Up Your Own Character” and that is the motto that goes with what I remind myself every day, I am art.

It’s such a beautiful thing when you learn something new about yourself and then you realize that you’re a masterpiece, you’re a beautiful illustration, such a unique creature that no one else can duplicate. Once an original, always an original, especially when you “make-up” your own character.