A Narcissistic Treatise

I'm no beauty, but after I showered this evening I decided to part my hair on the left side for a change. I'd normally shy away from doing this, because when I was about five I fell off my bike and scraped my head on the sidewalk, leaving a small roundish scar near the center of my hairline. When I part my hair on the right, it covers the scar. It's a little harder to cover when I part it the other way. But I decided to do it anyway (I've got nothing better to do), and in doing so had an epiphany.

In trying to hide one's physical flaws, you may end up making yourself look worse.

See, I'm kind of a weirdo; sometimes I couldn't care less what I look like, and am generally low-maintenance. Other times, I think I'm more horrifying than Quasimodo and need to put an extra hour's work into my appearance. I suppose you could say my obsession with my "ugliness" all started when I discovered what I actually looked like, from everyone else's view.

It was a disappointing day.

When I look at myself in the mirror, I think I'm above average on the looks graph. My face looks, for the most part, symmetrical, and on good days I think I'm almost pretty. But then when I saw some photos of myself, and acquired a small hand mirror which I used in front of the bathroom mirror to scrutinize my REAL face (I know, I'm insane), my stomach kind of shriveled up a little and I began to semi-obsess about my whacked out facial structure.

Why the hell is my left eyebrow jacked up like that? Why are my cheeks so puffy? Since when did my mouth drift over a little to the left? Why is my nose crooked? And OHMYGOD, my left eye is drifting AWAY from my nose! Grotesque!

In short, and being honest with myself, I realized I wasn't all that pretty. I was average at best. Maybe even ugly, from an unflattering angle. I have discovered my "bad side".

After that fateful discovery of my hideous visage, I tried out a few things to make my face look less like one side had been mashed with the forceps when I was surgically extracted from my mother's womb. I attempted brushing my left eyebrow down, and even plucked off a few top hairs. That didn't do anything, and I wound up with holes in my eyebrow. I tried plucking the bottom hairs off the OTHER brow, but that just thinned it out and looked weird. For a second I think I contemplated shaving them off and drawing them back on, as my grandmother does, but luckily that thought flitted away just as quickly as it had come.

Facial reconstruction surgery is rightfully reserved for accident victims, but some days I can't help wishing I was like Tally Youngblood from those Scott Westerfeld books (which kick ass), where, at sixteen, girls and boys go through a highly advanced "surgery" where they become totally gorgeous and attractive in every way. You could say they get super enhanced bodies and faces.

Makeup didn't ease my dilemma. Unless I had a professional working on my face everyday, like, say, an airbrush artist, nothing was going to move my features to their aesthetically correct places.

Last summer, I got my hair cut. Back in high school, my hair was long and parted in the center. This style wasn't completely unflattering to my face shape, but it was boring. Almost hippy-ish. So I got it cut shorter, but not only that, I got bangs. Bangs, which I hadn't had since I was a gangly little kid. Maybe 11 or so. I had them side swept, because I wasn't a fan of the "devour half of your head" kind that just sit there and do nothing but look outdated. When trying out different parts, I requested that Joanna part my hair from the right side. She complied. It was a change, but I liked it. The scar on my hairline, a literal bald spot, you could say, was no longer visible.

My hair has grown about four inches since last summer, and my "bangs" are half the length of the rest of my hair now. Lately, I've gotten antsy about my hair, and noticed that having it parted from the right hasn't really done much for my appearance. Because it's parted on the right, all the hair is piled to the left. The right side of my hair looks thinned and flat (my hair is thin, but abundant, and I didn't want to look like I had any less) and the other side is almost voluminous. Kind of.

So, subconsciously, I've been obsessing over my appearance and being jealous of pretty girls with symmetrical faces and high cheekbones. And thick hair. And small feet. But that's another matter I won't suffer you with.

Which leads to this very night -- or last night, to get technical -- when I contemplated parting my hair the other way. I suppose my mother's reminder to call the salon for an appointment had some influence on my decision; either way, I thought, why not? And combed my wet hair from left to right.

It actually made a teeny tiny difference, but then, that's all it really takes sometimes to freshen things up. Before, when I had tried to completely conceal my scar and soften the harshness of my face, I was actually making it worse.

Kind of reminds me of when I was a freshman in high school, and actually LAYERED my pants because I was so self conscious about how skinny and gawky I was. I can't tell you how glad I am to be out of my early teens. Luckily I've filled out some, thanks to my indolent tendencies and fatty diet. You could say, "Yeah, yeah yeah. It's called growing up," but I think it took me longer to physically develop than other girls. Naturally, my boobs probably stopped growing back in grade school, and will probably always remain a 32A. My only consolation is that hopefully they'll still have a little perk by the time other women's are sagging down to their waists.

When I was in middle school, I had no sense of style, in any shape or form. My hair was a frizzy, glaring indicator of puberty, and, in epic ignorance, I slapped sticky globs of gel onto it. I was even more fussy than I am today; any stray hairs were unacceptable, and I wore up to four or five clips in my hair. My hair was a demon I had to wrestle in those days, even though I've known girls who have hair that was and is much more beastly than mine.

Makeup was also something new, and I caked foundation onto my face that was probably too dark, and smudged blue eyeshadow onto my lids with my fingers. I didn't know good posture yet (this I didn't become consistently mindful of until maybe a year ago, if that, sadly), and my large feet looked even larger because of my skinny legs and bony ankles. I had braces, a palate-splitting and lower jaw extending device glued to my teeth that caused me endless amounts of pain and embarrassment, that had to be removed five months early because it was gouging a hole into my cheek, and incredibly low self esteem. I wanted to look presentable, but didn't know how. I didn't understand anything.

Middle school was much worse than high school. For me, high school was almost a blessing. In middle school, the girls were cruel and had established clear levels of the popularity hierarchy. Girls were either awkward and plain and didn't know what to do with themselves, or they were stylish, and both physically and socially mature. I was still very shy, and still relatively new to the town in which I'd been living for a few years.

I was a freaky little thing, though I had a couple of somewhat friends. I didn't socialize much though. It was around this time that I became very insecure, and sort of withdrew into myself. My parents worried that I was depressed.

My senior year of high school was one of the better years, where I had a small, but wonderfully unique coterie of established friends (the friends I had throughout my school years has changed quite a bit, especially since my family has moved a couple of times). I was aware of my dorkiness and chose to embrace it, instead of trying to be someone else. I wasn't interested in popularity. Fuck that. I had weird, wise-beyond-their-years friends, and a few younger individuals who were no less interesting that I wasn't as close with, but feel honored to have known. I'm definitely ready to get out into the world and make some new friends -- the few from high school I hardly see, though we try to stay in touch. But the more the merrier, right?

Well, it's one in the morning now, so I'd better wrap this up.

Being an unemployed college student who will be graduating next spring is frightening. We people tend to forget that despite what we do, we still have minimal control over our lives, and what happens to us. I feel like I'm grasping at sand, or thin air -- apparently, applying to various establishments just isn't enough to actually get me hired. But what can I do? Demand employment at gunpoint? If only I had a gun...

Despite my insecurities and trivial concerns, the one thing I appreciate about growing up is the ability (for me, at least, I try not to speak for everyone) to take things in, and actually understand them in a positive way. When I was younger, I had a tendency to reject some of the helpful things my parents told me as silly, and retreated back into my mental cocoon to feel sorry for myself.

I still have plenty of days where I feel unattractive, but it's gotten easier for me to take advice from others seriously, and be able to stand back and look at myself and see what I can work on. Not just physically, of course -- I've been able to identify what I've been doing to hold myself back, and that I (here's an "Ah ha" moment) have ridiculously high standards for everyone else, but MYSELF. I want to be a good, useful person in the world, but I do little to combat the laziness to do so. I can talk to my parents about things I feel, about myself and everything else. My parents say I've always been more mature than others in some ways, and maybe I have, but I think this is the point in my life where the real maturing begins -- when things get really tough, and my own self doubts get in the way.

Obsessing about my possible ugliness isn't going to get me a job and an income. It's not going to get me a college degree. Instead of worrying about flaws and trying to cover them, just accept them as part of what you are and don't whine about them.

That will only draw attention and make people feel sorry and a little annoyed that they even bothered to hang out with you.