The other day, while applying eyeliner like I’ve done a million times before, I had a revelation.

I realized what color my eyes were.

Now I’m sure you’re thinking… “Um, how did you get to be in your 30’s and not know what color your eyes are?”  But the thing is, I thought I knew.

But as I ran the thin black brush along my lower lid, I was struck by how green my eyes were.  I even thought to myself, “I really like how this eyeliner makes my green eyes pop.”  So why is this such a strange statement?

I’ve always thought my eyes were hazel.

Whenever I’ve been asked, I say hazel.  I’m pretty sure my driver’s license says hazel.  And all I can remember all through my years of growing up  is being told I had hazel eyes.

So either one of two things happened:

1.  I did have hazel eyes and somewhere along the way, they turned green.

OR

2.  I’ve always had green eyes but somewhere along the way, someone told me I had hazel eyes and I latched on to it.

I’ll probably never know the answer to my eye color mystery.  But it did get me thinking as I stood there at the bathroom mirror… “How many other things that people have said about me have I latched onto, whether or not they were the truth?”

In elementary school, teachers and other parents told me I was shy, so I kept going through all of my school years thinking, “Ok, I’m shy.”  Except that doesn’t explain why I would go on to be on a dance team that performed at basketball games or take a part time job that required me to model in fashion shows.

As I got older, certain family members told me that I was a mess, erratic and didn’t know what I was doing.  So I willingly accepted that label and spent the better part of ten years thinking that’s just who I was.

Except what if those labels… a mess, erratic, clueless, selfish, unsettled… were just that.  Labels.  Like hazel eyes.

What if I had accidentally taken someone else’s words and made them into truths?

Too often, this is the case for most of us.  We get up in the morning, brush our teeth, put on our clothes and then put on all of the labels that everyone around us has given us.  Lazy, naive, stupid, worthless.

Then we go about our lives, wearing those labels and believing they are truth, instead of looking for what’s really real.

But now you know… the secret is out.  You don’t have to wear those labels anymore.  You can rip them off and toss them in the trash, where they should be anyway.

I start my days now by making sure none of those pesky labels are still stuck to me and I clothe myself instead with truths… spirited, adventurous, passionate, blessed.

Now I just have to go to DMV and let them know that my eyes are green.