Faces

“There will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet.”

If I told you I was beautiful, would you read this? I’ll bet you would. You might imagine that I had smoldering blue eyes, full blonde hair, pouty lips and an hourglass figure. You would read this as though it was meant for you alone. You would read it as though I sat for hours thinking only of you, thinking meticulously of each word I wrote so that I might enrapture you more with every sentence. You might even read it as a love letter. Even if I wrote of nothing but the weather, you might imagine that when I said that the sun was radiant today I really meant that when your eyes capture mine from across the room my heart flutters as though there were a million tiny butterflies trying to burst through my chest. Beautiful people tend to fascinate the world, and while we can’t all be beautiful, we can all buy makeup.

Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I am afraid that I am far from beautiful. My eyes are a bit too far apart, and a very ordinary color of brown. My nose is just a little bit too big, and my mouth is more shapely than pouty. My hair is brown and lank. I’m about twenty pounds over weight, and my breasts are too small to be noticeable at all. There, now you may stop reading knowing that there is no one beautiful writing to you. There is an absolutely ordinary person that’s writing every word you’re reading now.



There, now that I’m sure no one is reading this, I suppose I can say anything. I’m talking to air, so there’s no reason to be dishonest. I was being completely honest about being ordinary. My eyes are in fact too far apart, but if you highlight the corners with just a little bit of white eye shadow, practically no one notices. The color of my eyes is perfectly ordinary, but it’s no problem when I distract any possible observer with a bright shade of green or blue. My nose is too big, but if I back-comb my hair and put blonde streaks in it my nose is almost fully disguised.

There are certain clothes I can wear that will make it so I barely look overweight at all, and there is a bra that I have that makes my breasts look at least a size bigger.
I don’t think that I could face the world without the things that make me look presentable. I must at least try to blend in with the beautiful faces that my friends were born with and attempt to convince myself that I’m worthy to be their friend.
I must confess that my make up regime is not the only necessary ritual of the morning. Every morning I must compose my face so that I don’t look like I feel on the inside. I try to make it look like I’m confident, collected, and calm.

I turn my mouth up in a half smile, trying to make it look like I’m sure of myself; I only end up looking stupidly happy. I try the opposite and I turn the corners of my mouth down in a small frown, as though I know I’m better than everyone around me. I only end up looking like I’m scowling and upset. I try different expressions until I finally decide that a completely neutral face is going to work the best. It makes me look like I’ve just had a really awful day, but at least it’s not too ugly.

It’s odd that so much effort should go into something that should be so simple. I’m just one human being meeting another human being. Don’t we all have the same problems, the same worries? If my mascara is smudged wouldn’t another girl looking at me remember that mascara does smudge sometimes, and it often goes unnoticed for hours. Why is it that people are so critical of others? Haven’t we all jumped the same hurdles? Overcome the same obstacles at different points in our lives?

This universal understanding is rarely evident, but every so often a look passes between two strangers that exemplifies this understanding. It is a very rare and particular look that carries with it the linking of two separate lives, joined together in one moment of perfect understanding. This look passes between anyone from mothers of screaming children, to fathers who have been sentenced to life in prison, to children who scream at their parents just to be noticed. Only in these moments do I ever feel that the world is not really as cruel as it seems, and if someone can see that through the makeup I put on myself and through the expression that I carefully arrange on my face perhaps the makeup and the expression on my face isn’t really as important as it seems.