Three years ago, I lost 40 pounds. Two years before that I lost 30 pounds. So that means, that five years ago, I was 70
pounds heavier than I am right now.
Sometimes, I encounter people I haven’t seen in years and they will look
at me twice, just to make sure it’s really me.
Or they’ll say things like “you
look AMAMZING!! How much weight have you
lost?” While those interactions give me
some satisfaction, I’m always a little self conscious after. Because I am not at my ideal weight. And I am not satisfied with my body. Then, I feel guilty for giving up on my goal
weight before I achieved it. Naturally,
I think “I’ve gotta get back in it. I
can do the last twenty pounds by summer.”
I don’t do it though. If I were
going to do it, I would have done it three years ago, with the other 40
pounds.
Of course, I told you that story to tell you this story. This morning I was in the shower and I looked
down and I was surrounded by this feeling of same. It seems ridiculous, but I was embarrassed to
be with myself in the shower. Vulnerable. Flawed.
Naked. So I rinsed out my hair
and got out of there in quick, fast and in a fucking hurry. I don’t need to spend too much time with that
reality. So got dressed and put some
stuff on my face and stopped looking in the mirror. Because that wasn’t helping anything. I was getting really anxious about seeing
myself naked. And, yes. I realize how shallow that sounds. With all of the legitimate things I could
worry about, I was most concerned with my body.
I think they call that vanity.
That’s when the epiphany hit me like a baseball bat to the ribs: “we are doing this to ourselves. And we’re fucked if we care too much and we’re
fucked if we don’t care enough.”
What does that all that mean, you ask? Well, it’s all first-semester, community
college psychology. It’s about how the influence
of our environment dictates how we see ourselves. It’s nature vs. nurture. In this case, the way we are nurtured
overrules how we are natured. It’s a
social reflection of perfection that is nearly impossible to achieve. We have invested so deeply into the power media
has assigned beauty and perfection that it’s what we value the most. And when we don’t live up to societal
expectations of perfection and beauty, we just assume we can’t be loved or
accepted.
Ok. So saying that we
are captives to the corporate dollar and the media’s profiling of perfection is
a little extreme. And it’s also not a
new idea. It’s been stated repeatedly in
scholarly journals and in journalistic exposés and, even, advertisers have tried
to buck the establishment (please see Dove’s marketing campaign, from the
mid-2000’s, geared toward “real” women.)
We know that it’s not a new idea.
We know that stereotyping ourselves, based on what Hollywood, or Vogue
or L’Oreal sells to us is total bullshit.
But they don’t’ stop. So neither
do we. So, we have done this to
ourselves.
Now listen. I’m not
pointing fingers. Nobody pays more for a
beauty regimen than I do. Nobody in the
real world, anyway. I have a girl who
does my hair. I have a girl who waxes my
eyebrows and my bikini line. There’s a
girl who paints my toes. I buy designer
makeup to cover up the blemishes and lines on my face. The pantyhose I wear tuck and cover
everything. You can’t see the scar on my
knee from where I fell in the orchard behind our house when I was 12. You can’t see the imperfections in my thighs
(and by imperfections, I mean lumps. GIANT.
CELLULITE. LUMPS.) AND!! They
make my waist look about two inches smaller than it actually is. I pay for all of that. I pay to look better than I actually do. There’s a market for it, and since the market
told me that I should look better than I actually do, I pay for it. All of it.
If you were born into and/or raised in this culture of
beauty, you are fucked. If you care too
much about how you look, you are a narcissist.
If you don’t care enough, you’re a slob. If you find yourself living a very average
life, then all you have to do is head to your local beauty supply store, pay
close to a thousand dollars, and walk away with all the tools to make you “appear”
standard. This is the thing though. If you are average, and you can pay to look
better, AND you really want to conform,
you will do it. But the other thing is,
if you do all of those things, you still have to look at yourself naked. You still see what is underneath. You still know that no amount of hair color
or makeup or skinny skirts is going to change what you are. So, what are you?
This morning in the shower, I looked down at my body and
thought “For fuck sake. Haven’t I paid
enough to get rid of this by now?” The
stretch marks and the belly fat and the cellulite and the small boobs. Haven’t I paid enough to be better than
this? Not even in a dollar amount. Haven’t I paid enough in emotional currency
to be better than this? “What are you?”
I asked myself. And this is what it
comes down to: I am still a lonely,
aging spinster. I’m still afraid of
having a meaningful relationship. I’m
still driving that Focus I bought in college.
The effects self esteem have on your psyche, on yourself image, only
hinder you. It doesn’t matter how much
makeup I apply or how many shoes I buy or how often I get my hair done. I’m still an aging spinster. With a child and failed marriage and a car
that is going to die any day now. I’m
still the girl in an empty bed every morning.
And when I look at my body in the shower, I assume I know why: I’m not pretty enough. Or smart enough. Or wealthy enough. And I’m old enough, now, to know that I will
never look good naked. Maybe it’s time
to find a backup plan.
Self esteem is a bitch.
Especially when you are naked.
-Inner Peas
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