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Broke Wife, Big City
Mirror, mirror,
on the wall
By Aprill Brandon
I can’t remember exactly how old I was. It was probably around age 11.
A lot of important revelations are made when you turn 11. Like
realizing tater tots are the world’s most perfect food and how one eye
roll is worth a thousand “whatever’s.”
So it was probably around this time that I decided it was my nose. It
was so obvious. Literally right there way out in front of my face. All
my problems in life began and ended with my nose.
What was wrong with it exactly? Pffft. Where to even start? Too big
from the front view, too long from the side view. It was simultaneously
too skinny at the bridge yet too bulbous at the nostrils. If some girls
had button noses, I had a jacked up, gigantic, old lady brooch on my
face.
I was the love child of Jimmy Durante and Dumbo.
Oh, if only it weren’t for my nose. I then might have had a shot at
being kind of pretty. Not cute, of course. And certainly not beautiful.
I was nothing if not a young realist. But with enough makeup and
hairspray and overpriced Urban Outfitter sweaters, I could pass for
kind of pretty if you were squinting.
Sigh.
If only it weren’t for my nose.
It really was a kind of Greek tragedy on a micro-scale. Because when I
was 11, if you couldn’t even pass for kind of pretty, it meant you were
ugly. And being ugly meant life was over.
Over the years, of course, the culprits changed. If only I wasn’t so
pale. Clearly I was also meant to be a blonde. My naturally dark hair
washes me out. And these crooked teeth. The only girl in my junior high
school without braces and now I’m paying for it with a smile that would
put Steve Buscemi to shame. Obviously I also need to lose 10 pounds.
Although 30 would be better.
As I got older, entirely new regions became problematic. Was that the
beginning of a forehead wrinkle? Where did this arm flab come from?
Apparently these under-eye circles are permanent now. Cellulite? It
cellu-bites. Then there was the fateful day I discovered going braless
was clearly no longer an option.
There was always something preventing me from living the perfect life
of the women in the perfume ads.
But the most disturbing thing of all is how this kind of vicious
tearing down of every aspect of our appearance is so ingrained into so
many of us women that we no longer see the absolute absurdity of it.
It’s completely normal. I mean, talk about multi-tasking. From a very
young age, this internal monologue runs through our heads as we earn
top grades in school and play three different sports and act in plays
and create art and start our careers and earn accolades and fall in
love and volunteer and travel the world and get published and rescue
shelter pets and raise our kids and buy our own home.
But who has time to reflect on all that we’ve accomplished in life when
our unruly and patchy eyebrows aren’t perfectly plucked into an arch?
And I’m sure I would have skipped happily to my death with this
Imperial March of Imaginary Facial and Bodily Deformities continually
running through my head if it weren’t for one small thing. One very
small thing, in fact.
Here in a few months I will be giving birth to a daughter. A beautiful,
perfect little girl. A sweet, pink-cheeked tiny angel.
Who is going to emerge from my body as the devil herself.
Yes, apparently my wonderful not-yet-born baby girl is bound to be
difficult. Because, according to multiple sources, girls are so much
more difficult than boys. My closest family members tell me this. My
good friends tell me this. Complete strangers who ask the gender of my
swollen belly feel the need to tell me this as they are awkwardly
rubbing me like I’m a breathing, bloated magic lamp.
Boys will be boys. But girls? Well, girls will be brats.
Of course, not everyone believes this. But it sure feels like it. And
it makes me so utterly sad.
Because whether or not you believe raising girls is more difficult, the
fact remains it is more difficult to be a girl. Remember, Ginger Rogers
did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in heels. And the
poor lady was still expected not to sweat her makeup off or muss up her
hair.
This is the world my “bound-to-be” difficult daughter is entering.
Complete with a “I feel naked without ten pounds of eyeliner on” mother
raising her to boot.
She doesn’t stand a chance.
Which is why I now realize something has to change, starting with me.
Because I don’t want my daughter wasting any time sitting in front of a
mirror hating her face at the tender age of 11. Not when there are
books to read and trees to climb and adventures to begin and secret
giggles to share and songs to belt out off-key and races to run and ice
cream on hot afternoons to eat.
I want her, when she even bothers to notice her face, a face that I
gave her, to realize that it’s just one small part of the amazing whole
that makes up who she is. As are her bony knees and loud laugh and
curly hair and love of dogs and freckled shoulders and all the other
actual elements that will make up who she is that I can’t even imagine
yet.
I want makeup and fashion to simply be something creative she gets to
play around with, not something that determines her self-worth. I want
exercise to be fun, not something she has to do to be considered
desirable. I want food to be delicious fuel, not a life-long battle she
always thinks she’s losing. I want success to be how she defines it,
not how the boy she likes defines it, not how a magazine defines it and
not how the more terrible elements of the Internet comments section
defines it.
But that can only happen if she has a good role model. And I’m
determined that she will.
Because as it turns out, my nose was actually perfect this whole time.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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