The Imagined Other
Trying to keep up with someone who doesn’t exist is a game we were never supposed to win.
I believed it all.
Every photo of pore-less skin; every spotless home with meticulously styled children and furniture; every long, lean leg, free of cellulite or visible veins or hair. I never once stopped to question these images, never once paused to consider that each was false. That each was out to sell me the very dissatisfaction with self that feels ingrained, born with; the kind of commodification of self-loathing that inhabits every cell of my being. A young, vulnerable me was inundated with imagery of perfection, of effortless, graceful, and endless youth and loveliness. A young, innocent me ingested media that showed the Beautiful Ones, the Ones who were born that way, and would always be so beautiful. They would never suffer a wayward blemish, a stretch mark or sagging skin. They would never look in the mirror and desperately examine the deepening lines on their faces, the broken skin, the dulling skin, the skin of a Not-So-Beautiful One. My genes were failing me, and I coveted the pictures showing me that I was alone in my struggles.
I believed it all.
It never occurred to me that the Beautiful Ones were struggling too. That the Beautiful Ones painstakingly applied makeup and filters, and carefully edited out every stray blemish, every stretch mark, every sign of Not-So-Beautiful-ness. It never occurred to the me that the celebrities I saw in the magazines had to maintain an unnatural youthfulness, at all costs. Injections, fillers, trainers, assistants to make sure no sign of Not-S0-Beautiful-ness seeped out to the public. Jobs exist solely to ensure that the Image of Woman is sold to real woman, so that we can all buy the things that will make us look more unreal. We no longer question the face on television, with the flawless skin and expressionless face. We covet the ability to have the same.
I often looked at these perfect Images of Woman, and felt inadequate and decrepit. I grew dejected with my body, disgusted with my aging face, sick over the blue veins in my legs, unconsolable about the inability to stop time from taking its reviled toll on me. Then, I would pep myself back up. You can change this, I would whisper to myself, take charge! I would buy creams, tapes, drink more water, save for surgeries, exercise, smile less. I would try to push the Beautiful Ones out of my mind, because I knew they were all able to do all these things naturally. As I plodded through housework, trying to make ends meet, raising kids, and planning out my perfect life, the Beautiful Ones glided through each task like it was nothing. In fact, I was sure the Beautiful Ones had money and help, from birth, because the Beautiful Ones were more worthy of such things. And the ones who were more self-made, well, they had figured out some formula that was always just out of my reach. Somehow, my dirty and disorganized fingers would never reach the map of how to live my “Best Life,” but maybe if I could splurge on the right clothes and the expensive serums, I could glimpse an portion of it. I could maybe one day get close.
Then one day, a friend revealed that she looked at me as a Beautiful One, that I seemed to have shit figured out, and a booming business, and delightful children, and a cleanly home. It was then, at that moment, that I realized how dangerous and deceitful the game of comparison is. How gleefully our society sets us Women out to fail, to fall, but to go down tossing out money every inch of the way. We are sold shame. We are taught competition. We are instructed to bottle up our icky emotions, our ugly feelings so as to be a fraction of the woman a Beautiful One is. If only we could have the long legs, and the silky hair. But remember, if you have to pay for hair relaxing or dare to alter your body through surgery, then you are a Fake Woman. We are sold into a game we were never meant to win.
How is it possible to heal from this? How is it possible to let go of the Imagined Other, the Beautiful One, the Ideal Woman who leads the impeccable life we all want to live? It’s complicated, as we are.
We can overcome the self-loathing we bought and paid for through simple communication. Through transparency. Through a basic phone call to another woman, who, right at that moment, was peering into the mirror and lamenting her pale eyebrows, her sallow skin. Its from relaxing and exploring the novel idea that we women exist and can take up space exactly how we are. You can be a fat woman and not expect to be taunted. You can be a black woman, with a loud voice and boisterous laugh, and be looked at with amusement rather than anger for your audacity. You can be a woman with expertly applied makeup and be looked at as an expert, rather than a bimbo. We live in a society that has set us up to fail no matter what route we take, but we women will never fail. The key to digging deep, to seeing all of ourselves as Beautiful Ones will always come from connection.
We Women can see the Magic in each other, if we can stop comparing ourselves to that which does not exist.
