Leah McSweeney’s Lip Liner on Instagram

Real Housewives of New York 2020 Instagram Beauty

We are all reading Leah McSweeney’s lips and they are saying that we need her liner. It’s the perfect barely there color that still catches your eye. And it certainly did for all of her IG followers because they were alllll asking what she had on in this photo. Thank goodness she didn’t keep her perfectly lined lips sealed and she shared the deets.

Sincerely Stylish,

Jess

Click Here To Shop Her Sisley Paris Beige Nature Lip Pencil

Outfit: Married to the Mob

Photo & ID Credit: @leahmob

Originally posted at: Leah McSweeney’s Lip Liner

Lately, my friends have been decluttering their places and spaces. Good for them! Breaking FREE from our old stuff isn’t easy but it feels great when we do. It feels like a slice of freedom.

Everything from closets and garages to our smart phones needs to be reorganized and minimized from time to time. I have a stockpile of flash drives that makes me cringe when I think about sorting through the old photos and documents stored on them.

What Does Freedom Mean?

There’s an often quoted lyric that Kris Kristofferson wrote and Janis Joplin sings: “Freedom’s just another word for nothing else to lose.” It means that giving up our attachments to people and things would free us from the responsibilities they place on us.

I think a better description of freedom comes from Apostle Paul, “Although we’re able to have everything, we must not become slaves to anything.” I don’t think freedom comes from having nothing. It’s won when we know what to keep in our lives and what to let go of.

Freedom asks of us, “Why am I hanging on to this?” Our answer is largely about our memories. We look to our memories for the reason we first became attracted to something (or someone).

We depend on our memories to determine if we want to live with or without it going forward. This is a search through more than our belongings. It searches our hearts and souls, too.

The Power of Memories

Memories of what we’ve been through, what we’ve been taught, and what we believe determine what and why we hold on to things. Depending on what we remember, we choose things that protect us from harm or promise us happiness.

And our choices are about much more than what meets the eye. They represent what we remember about our faith, values, and our purpose in this world. They show the world if we feel worthy of love and respect. Our “stuff” even shows the world if we are sad, mad, or glad.

Good memories show up and get shared in our lives as special photos, precious jewelry, antiques, and sentimental souvenirs. It’s hard to part with things that remind us of being loved or loving another.

But when our memories spoil, we toss things out, like photos that no longer stir up a good feeling, or clothes that are no longer attached to a special occasion. Likewise, we let go of relationships when they aren’t fondly remembered.

Is There Garbage in Your Head and Heart?

I lived in Kalamazoo for 355 days. It was one of the worst years of my life. I remember tyrannical bosses, 105 days of rain and snow, a very tiny apartment, loss of family and friendships. I threw out every photo I took of that city.

I can’t even look at celery because Kalamazoo is the celery capital of America. And I switch the TV channel when the MI chamber of commerce slogan proclaims, “Say yes to Michigan.” But even when I got rid of the tangible items attached to Kalamazoo, I was still imprisoned by my memories.

Our bad memories are hard to shake. Memories of schoolyard bullies, senseless death, or painful divorce clutter up our heads and hearts with anger, hurt, or shame. Sometimes they are stored deep in the cellars of our minds and hard to access. Sometimes we don’t even want to go through them.

We take them out only to be reminded of our pain – to reinforce our vow to never be hurt again. Or we try to forget and bury them like forgotten garbage, growing more toxic every day.

But I’m learning that our memories can distort the truth. I’m clawing my way through painful memories to uncover the proverbial rest of the story. (Kalamazoo had some happy days if I’m just willing to remember them.)

Sorting through our past stuff will certainly stir up grief. Like cleaning out a closet, it gets messier first.

Freedom Is Choosing What to Hold on to, and Loving What You Choose

Uncovering our happier memories allows us to appreciate what we have in our lives, differently. We accept what seems too painful to hold on to, but too painful to let go.

If your painful past is taking up too much room in your present, try this:

Pay Attention

The word memory comes from the 13th century Latin word, mindful. No one can make you practice mindfulness – which is really just paying attention. It’s your choice. But I promise you, when you pay attention to the connection between your memories and your belongings, your life will change.

You might even begin to find the freedom that comes from rediscovering happier memories buried deep below the bad ones. You will begin to let go of your sad and bad stories and hold on, for dear life, to what makes you and the world happy.

Find a Purpose

There will be times you ask, “What do I need?” Try following up with the question, “And where am I needed?” It feels good to be needed.

Being needed isn’t a burden – it creates the kind of freedom that we will remember as purposeful and wonderful. Sort through your heart and soul and hold on to each other. That’s really why we’re here. Remember, having each other is truly having it all.

What memories are shaping your life today? Do you keep any of your belongings just because of their attachment to a specific memory? Have you thrown stuff out because of a memory? Do you think your memories burden you or free you? Please share your thoughts with our community!

I lost my mother recently. It wasn’t to Covid-19, thank goodness, but it was very sudden. Because of the virus, I was not able to make a planned trip to spend Easter with her this year.

Indeed, and like so many other families who have lost a parent in the last few months, none of her four children were able to see her during the last few months of her life.

What I Notice

When you lose someone you love, memories of them resurface when you least expect it. Some friends here in London sent me some beautiful flowers when they heard of my mother’s death. As I went to change the water one day, I found myself reaching for the sugar bowl.

My mother always told me that if you changed the water on flowers every day – and added a teaspoon of sugar – the flowers would live longer. She was full of practical, everyday wisdom like that.

Then my husband opened our pantry and noticed a jar of instant decaffeinated coffee lurking in one of the back corners. The jar was a holdover from my mother’s last visit some two and a half years ago, the last time she was able to travel alone.

I don’t think either one of us ever actually clocked that jar before. It had blended into the obscure architecture of the back cupboard, along with other, long-neglected items like a bottle of yeast extract and a can of Brunswick Canadian style sardines.

Suddenly, that jar was all we could see. Neither one of us could bring ourselves to throw it out, even though there is no way on God’s earth that either one of us will ever drink instant coffee in this lifetime.

Rituals and Values

Another thing that happens when a parent dies is that you begin to appreciate all the myriad ways you’ve begun adopting their idiosyncratic habits. Ten years ago, I wrote a blog post about five ways I was turning into my mother.

These included things like carrying a large library book with me everywhere I go, lest things get dull, doing extensive back exercises every morning, much to the chagrin of my teenaged children, and re-purposing everything I possibly can to save money, including – yes – tea bags.

That list of shared behaviors has grown. When my mother moved from the last house she owned into a small apartment in an independent living facility, she could only bring one bookshelf.

A voracious reader (see library books, above), she had amassed an impressive collection of novels, history, and plays over the course of a lifetime. But she chose to bring only poetry with her to her new home. I’ve never read poetry in my life. A few months ago, I started reading it too.

I’ve also begun replicating her values. My mother became active in the League of Women Voters when, as a young mother with four children, she moved to a new town where she didn’t know anyone.

That political commitment carried on for the next 50 years. Right up into her mid-80s, she was still making phone calls for her local congressional candidate of choice.

I’ve never been particularly politically active, save attending the odd protest here and there and supporting causes I believe in on social media. This year, I joined a team of virtual volunteers, leading the charge to get out the vote among Americans living overseas.

The Gift of Writing

The greatest gift my mother gave me – and certainly the one with the longest staying power – was teaching me how to write. My mother wrote plays, children’s stories, and a terrific family history I’ve had occasion to re-read in the wake of her death.

When I was in high school, she would sit with me for hours and go over my essays, advising me on structure, wording, and tone. Everything I know about writing I learned from her.

When I took some time off years ago to work on a novel, she sent me a poem about writing, which I posted on my blog.

It was partly a poem about resilience: about falling down and getting back up, which is, of course, what writing is all about. It was also about how much we feel is riding on those words. But it was also about mothers and daughters, and how we connect through the shared struggle of writing… and life.

I end this post with the closing verse of that poem, called The Writer by Richard Wilbur: 

It is always a matter, my darling, 
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish 
What I wished you before, but harder.

Have you experienced the death of a parent? What have you noticed about your habits since? Is there a difference regarding which parent has passed? Which of your mother’s/father’s habits do you cherish the most and embrace as your own? Please share with our community and let’s have a soulful conversation.

Leah McSweeney’s Brown Bomber Jacket at Dinner

Real Housewives of New York Season 12 Episode 12 Fashion

Leah McSweeney’s brown bomber jacket that she wore to dinner with her daughter Kier and baby daddy Rob (who she should totally be with right?!) in Chinatown on last night’s episode of RHONY is exactly the kind of bomb-ass bomber we’d expect this edgy, non-upper East Side New Yorker to have in her closet. And if you can say the same for yourself, well you better click “add to cart” now because we consider it a serious flight risk of going out of stock.

Fashionably,

Faryn

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Originally posted at: Leah McSweeney’s Brown Bomber Jacket