In high school, I was an ugly girl. I don’t know if others remember me that way, but I do. I did not understand how to apply makeup or how to deal with my frizzy hair. I was heavier. I did not dress well. I found my body frustrating and humiliating. I knew if I were attractive, I would be treated better. I knew also that to judge me on my appearance was a double standard. If I had been a boy, my beauty would matter less. I knew it was unfair, but the unfairness was not what bothered me.  What bothered me was my own inability to demystify beauty. To buy new clothes, get a good haircut, and play the game.
I did not learn how to apply makeup until I was 21 and had disposable income for the first time. When I did, I was suddenly fascinated by conventional beauty. I lived in a house with 5 anarchists, and I was obsessed with consuming product after product, buying outfit after outfit. I liked the ritual of it, the artistry, but it was never about self-expression.
I loved the idea of becoming a passive, easy type of beautiful. It seemed smart. I thought if I could just master the art of beauty, people would leave me alone, and my insecurities and fear about always sticking out (and being left out) would go with them.
I realized recently I interact with my body only in the ways it is perceived by others. This realization was not upsetting or cathartic. My body has just never been an aspect of being alive I found useful or interesting to dwell on. Like nearly everything else, I view it with a kind of anxious detachment. It’s nourishment and grooming are confusing, burdensome obligations. What I think of my body does not matter. My body is just the window through which other people see me. It has to be dressed a certain way in order to be understood.
Nothing I have experienced in my life, not physical assault, love of a trusted partner, life-threatening infection, or prolonged, encumbering illness has ever brought me close to my body. Perhaps because my body was never mine to begin with. Perhaps it has always been a thing of shame. A vessel. A burden of womanhood.
The ways I dress and draw on my makeup are attempts to manipulate others into treating me well. It is important to me to be treated with kindness, and when I wear makeup people are kinder to me. When I wear nice clothes people treat me like I have my life together, and I very much want to have my life together. My appearance is just an attempt to look pretty enough to get me where I want to go. I have a willingness to adapt and live within the world as it is, not as I would like it to be. I have more ambition than a dozen men. Beauty, perhaps not. Autonomy? Sometimes I feel I have none.
