How Am I Supposed to Look in a Mirror?
Because I'm pretty sure I've been doing it wrong
TW: body image, middle school, waking up early
I’m not sure why TODAY, but TODAY I am angry about beauty expectations put on women. I know, I know. It’s all been said.
But I’m saying some of it again.
For the last week, I’ve been staying in my childhood home. My family moved in when I was four, and since then, there’s been a big mirror in the room at the end of the stairs. Recently, my parents took the mirror down.
Every time I come down the stairs, even though I know the mirror isn’t there anymore, I turn my head to to right to check. Check what to criticize about myself today. What to “work on.” Suck in, tone. Stand up straighter. If that doesn’t fix it, turn back upstairs and change.
Change change change.
It sounds like something that could ruin your day, but it’s so quick. So quick and so easy. As I turn my head to the right, even though I know the mirror isn’t there, my mind only catches up to my body when the moment is over. And the day continues.
How many hours does it add up to? The split second of check, suck in, pinch my arm, touch my stomach, sigh because my butt looks the same as it did the last time I looked in the mirror?
To relax, I watch videos of beautiful people with perfect skin put makeup on.
“I should be reading a book,” I think. Then scroll anyway.
I watch these videos right before I go to sleep.
I buy a new sunscreen, I do a face massage. Part of me loves the sensuality of it, the “taking care of myself” of it. But what if I never own a house. What if my face changes anyway.
I know so many women who started becoming themselves in middle school. Maybe “curating” is a better word.
I know so many women who started curating themselves in middle school. We studied how to be the people we thought we needed to be. Read Cosmo, discussed shaving our legs. And then, we fucking did it. A lot of us pulled it off.
A friend of mine, bless him, gets perplexed when people make assumptions about him based on how he dresses. I’ve thought about this every single day since I can remember. In college, a friend and I made a vow never to walk around campus in sweatpants because we wanted to be taken seriously. In high school, I stayed up until midnight doing homework and then woke up at 7am to straighten my hair. Once, I wore cheetah print heels to a factory job where I was doing manual labor. I never said it made sense, only that it was on my mind.
If you’d asked me then, I would’ve said I was doing it for me. Probably because I didn’t know there were other options.
To be honest, if I had to give my younger self advice I have no idea what I’d say. Loving myself was never the problem. Maybe express that love in different ways? Turn to your right at the end of the stairs and smile instead.
Your outfit looks fine.
You don’t need to change.