I recently took a selfie, and the face staring back at me wasn’t exactly what I had hoped it would be.
There were lines I didn’t want
to see, the eyes were a little bloodshot from seasonal allergies (yay spring), the
hair was too stringy, and the woman in the picture just looked less put
together than I legit felt myself to be.
"Nope…not today," I thought. I immediately went to the app store and signed up for a free 7-day subscription to a photo-editor app. After trying a few different features (it started out with changing the lighting and smoothing out some of the lines, but quickly led to making the nose smaller and brightening the eyes), the woman in the picture looked much better.
She also looked 10 years younger,
like her skin routine cost a small fortune, and like she hadn’t gotten up at 5 am to go
for a run before work.
Oh…and she looked nothing
like me.
I had a good laugh and went right back to the original picture, bloodshot eyes and all.
The whole mental exercise took me back almost 30 years ago to a summer night in Paris.
It was the summer before senior year of high school and my 4 closest high school friends and I were all lucky enough to be a part of a summer study program in France (through the amazing D’Arlier Memorial Charitable Foundation).
It was the experience of a lifetime, but I was in a VERY strange headspace. I was having a difficult time with the looming transition to college, as well as all of the anxieties and self-esteem issues that come with being an American high schooler (who had never had a boyfriend…the WORST), all of which culminated in the form of an eating disorder that had grown far beyond my control.
Side note: The cruel irony of eating disorders is that they often germinate in the mind of somebody desperately seeking to control something, but they always end with the person feeling helplessly out of control. It is extremely painful and achingly unfair.
While the trip was based in Aix en Provence, we did spend a block of time in Paris, because you cannot take a bunch of midwestern kids to France and not go to Paris. It would be cruel.
One evening in Paris, the five of us were hanging out on the steps of Montmartre, enjoying some amazing people-watching on the kind of french summer night you can't ever forget. The crowd was made up mostly of tourists and a handful of artists (there solely to sell their art to the tourists). We had observed the many artists who did portraits throughout our visit, and I think even as teenagers we knew it was a little bit hokey, but it was one of our last nights in Paris, so YOLO (except it was 1996 so we actually said all of the words). A few of us decided to pony up our travelers checks and get our portraits drawn. If you don't get your portrait drawn at 17 years old on a summer night in Paris, then, honestly, when will you?
I don’t remember anything about the artist I picked, why I chose him, or the experience in general. All I can remember is the way I felt when I saw the finished portrait. The girl in the picture was stunning. She had sparkling eyes and beautiful hair, with a perfect smile. She could easily have been on the cover of Seventeen or YM (those were teen magazines, if anyone reading this was born after 1991).
As he rolled up the portrait
and handed it to me, I’m sure I was glowing.
I had always, deep down in
the depths of my mind, underneath all of the insecurities and teenaged angst…I
had always suspected I was actually gorgeous.
It took an artist in Paris to finally see it, but I was low-key exquisite. I knew it...I just knew it.
Riding the high, holding the proof of my beauty rolled up in my hand, I considered what my future held as I looked for my friends in the crowd. Modeling? Acting? A boyfriend?
When I finally found one of
my friends, I excitedly showed her the portrait. My anticipation was high. She would never believe how secretly beautiful
I was!
As I unrolled the paper, she smiled and said (without even a hint of mean-ness or teasing), “Wow, if you actually looked like that you could be a model!”
Ooof.
It felt a little harsh for about 10 seconds, but here’s the thing (and this is the reason I will never forget this story): I was not, am not, will never be the person in that portrait. My friend was so frank because (aside from the fact that she is just a very frank person) whether I was beautiful or not truly didn't matter to her, and I don't think it even occurred to her that it would be that important to me. I was her friend, a friend who at the time was struggling quite a bit, and she was far more concerned with literally everything about me OTHER than whether or not I was pretty.
I’m not sure what ever happened to the portrait. I’m sure it’s in a box somewhere in my Dad’s house. It doesn’t matter…she looked nothing like me.
Side note: I (100% predictably) forgot to cancel the subscription for the photo app after the week trial and now have full year of the ability to make myself look like somebody else ($50 gone - *poof*). So, until next April, 15th, feel free to openly question any selfies I post on social media. You can just comment "Wow, if you actually looked like that you could be a model!"
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