Am I even real?

Realizing I’ll never be plastic perfect

I’m aging into a new decade this month. There is always something particular jarring about getting older, seeing the passage of time manifest in front of you. Each year I am left with the startling realization that I Am Real.

Since childhood it's felt like I’ve had a glorious image hanging in my bedroom. Me, but hotter and richer and smarter. She greets me each morning and everyday I wait until I see her in the mirror.

As a girl, it is so tempting to believe you’re better off a concept. Everywhere, sparkling billboards display your ideal. Ageing, being confronted with your humanity, serves to remind you that you are not plastic—you are real.

How sad.

There’s nothing hot about weight gain and sweat and pimples and tampons and sticky retainers. Your body shows you that, it consistently reminds you that you’re not stagnant, not an image. You’re real. You’re ugly and gross and alive.

It’s a tragedy that brings me to my knees. The light years between me and my Ideal—the sinking suspicion that she might not be real.

It’s so rude if you ask me. How dare you sell me products with her face on it if I can never be her? How could this world tell me to become pretty and all my problems will be solved then slap me in the face when I thought I’d actually get there?

I've learned to get over it. You can trust me not to spiral. A week ago my photo app sent me a memory from 3 years ago when I was skinny and I’ve barely thought about it since. I’ve lived in the quiet called healing for a while now and all I can tell you is this: it is uncharted territory.

I am Real. The devastation of that has mostly subsided, in its place now is a seething anger. Not at the world for selling me the image but for making it my only option.

As women you are either hot or… I’m not sure what else. No one forgoes the first option long enough to see the second. I guess in a way I have and I’ve realized it’s this: being Real. My body is alive and changing and evolving and people aren’t happy about it.

When I left anorexia treatment 4 years ago I came up with the quote, “fall in love with a version of the world that has you in it.” The concept of self-acceptance was so alien. How could it be anything else? I’d never really been given another option.