Welcome to Prologs. My name is Mary, and when I get overwhelmed and start feeling behind, I find it helpful to zoom out and remind myself that I am still in the beginning of my story. I'm sharing all of my life's chapters, mental health, relationships, wellness, beauty, the chaos of being in my 20s, in all of life's unexpected turns.

Prologs is the best way to start your week, so join me every Monday morning for a new entry into my digital journal.

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Prologs.

Today's episode was inspired by an experience I had earlier this week. I was recording and editing an empties video for my YouTube. It's not up yet,

but an empties video for YouTube. And just out of curiosity, I went back and looked at the

empties video that I posted in March of this year. And I look really different right now than I

looked back then. My hair was a lot longer. It was bleached. I was tan. And I got really down on

myself and I was just comparing me right now to me in March. And I was like, I need to bleach my

hair again because I feel so much more confident in myself in the March video. And that's the

biggest difference. I like, I need to bleach my hair again. So I was talking about it with Matt and I

put it on my Instagram story, a little side

by side of the two videos.

And Matt was like, actually all you want is a tan.

You never talk like this when you feel tanned.

You feel pale, and that's why you're spiraling about your looks.

And I felt really called out by that.

But last night, I fake tanned,

I put oil in my hair. Today I did like hot girl makeup. And what do you know, I'm feeling 10

times better about myself. And it got me thinking about this idea of the fall and winter

uglies. I have seen that term all over my TikTok for you page this year. And at first,

I wasn't really sure what people meant, because as you guys know, fall and winter are my favorite

seasons. And I tend to just feel my best in those seasons. So I was like, fall in winter

...