Mirror, Mirror Off the Wall Page 26
Confession: I hadn’t yet found a way to tell Nikki about my no-mirrors project. I know, I know. I should have. But I already felt like such a huge moron for ruining my hair. I didn’t want to seem like a crazy moron. So I sat in Nikki’s chair, directly facing a huge mirror, attempting to hold a conversation by looking at her through the mirror while avoiding eye contact with myself. It was horribly awkward, and I’m not sure I didn’t seem like a crazy moron anyway. I didn’t allow myself to stare, but it was impossible to avoid seeing glimpses of my neon hair in the corners of my peripheral vision. Trying to avoid looking at these bits was like attempting to read around the highlighted portions of a textbook. Doable, but not easy.
Before I left the consultation, Nikki took pity on me and applied a neutralizing toner to take things down a notch before the full repair, which we scheduled for the following Monday. I was bummed that she didn’t have any openings before our St. Lucia’s Day brunch party, but at least I wouldn’t be headed to Louisville with highlighter head.
Two days later, I returned for the full corrective color appointment, which involved over two hours of skilled labor. Facing multiple hours in the salon chair, I fessed up to Nikki about not being able to look in the mirror. I felt sheepish for not explaining things earlier, but Nikki was cool with it, and maybe even a little bit impressed. She kindly spun the chair away from the mirror, and we spent the rest of the time chatting about our lives while she did her thing. While washing dye out of my hair (my fourth color application in five days!), Nikki assured me that everything looked good. I believed her. After a luxurious twenty-minute blow-dry, Nikki snapped two photos for her portfolio, and I was on my way. I walked home with a bounce in my step, hair swinging. Michael confirmed that my hair was, indeed, fixed. Hooray!
• • •
LATER THAT EVENING, MICHAEL CAME TO ME AND SAID, “HEY, we need to talk.”
It sounded serious, and I was nervous.
“Okay, here’s the thing. I know that you’ve been doing amazingly with your body image lately, so I don’t understand what happened the other day. You completely freaked out about your hair. I don’t even understand why you bothered to color it in the first place. What’s going on?”
It was time to fess up. “It’s your mom,” I admitted. “I’m terrified of looking bad when we visit next week. I can’t explain it, but whenever I’m worried about my looks, I keep wondering what your mom would think. Like, do I meet the Sherry standard? Every time I’m about to see her I want to buy cute new clothes, get my hair cut and colored, my nails done, and diet.”
He looked surprised. “You know that’s crazy, right?” he asked.
I didn’t know what to say, so I stayed silent. It didn’t feel crazy at all. It felt real and important. I was also kind of worried that reminding Michael of his mom’s discerning tastes might cause him to adopt them himself.
But that didn’t happen.
“Look, I know that my mom does things differently than you, but she loves you and she thinks you’re great. She says it all the time,” he began. “You’ve built something up in your mind about her that just isn’t true. Moreover, I don’t understand why you would care so much about what she thinks of you anyway. It doesn’t make sense to me. She’s just one person! So she said she was proud of you for wanting to lose weight. So what? Hundreds of online bullies said much worse, and you managed to take it in stride and fight back without compromising your values. But now I’m watching you fall apart because of things you think my mom might think about you.”
He was right, but it only made me feel more confused. I understood the logic, but I still felt as though Sherry cared a lot about my looks, and that I should care about her opinion of me. It was as if a part of me wanted Sherry to judge me. Michael was right, this wasn’t making sense. My anxiety increased.
“You know what the worst part of this is?” he continued. “You’re supposed to be an advocate for women and body image, and I feel like you’ve built my mom up to be, like, an enemy of everything you stand for. That’s just not fair. She didn’t have plastic surgery to spite other women; she just wanted to feel better about herself. I would have expected you to relate to that and be empathetic, but instead you’re using it to justify your own insecurities.”
Everything Michael had accused me of was right. I felt so confused. There had to be some reason for my behavior and anxieties, some explanation for why I’d created an enemy out of a woman who, for the most part, had been nothing but kind to me.
I started to cry and said the first thing that came into my mind: “It’s just not fair!”
“What’s not fair?” Michael asked.
It all came out in a rush.
“It’s not fair that your mom gets to go on diets and have all of this plastic surgery and spend money on clothes and makeup and haircuts, and she doesn’t even feel bad about it! She just thinks of what she wants to do and then she does it. She doesn’t care what people think. I don’t think your mom knows what angst is. It’s not fair!” Oh shit, I could tell that I was on the verge of an epiphany, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to have it.
“So what?” Michael asked, not giving up. “Why is it important to you that my mom feel guilty about these things? What possible impact could that have on you, and why would you even want that for her?”
“Look, I don’t want her to feel bad. I just feel like it’s unfair. I wish I could do all of those things, too!” I exploded with emotion. “I want to go on a diet! I want to spend money on cute clothes and pretty things and two-hundred-fifty-dollar salon visits! I might want to have plastic surgery someday, too. I know these things would be bad for me, but I don’t know how to stop wanting them. It torments me to see your mom just enjoy it all, without feeling the guilt and angst that I have.”
I was really crying by this point, the sniffly-snotty-gulpy kind of crying. I felt so pathetic, and freakish, and ugly—on the inside. I was an insecure, spiteful, and jealous person. I was a hypocrite. I’m not sure if Michael understood everything I was blabbering on about, but he hugged me as I cried.
Two things were clear. First, Michael was right that his mother couldn’t possibly care as much about my looks as I’d insisted (and even if she did, she couldn’t possibly be judging me as harshly as I’d been judging her!). Sherry hadn’t been an unavoidable trigger for my body image anxieties; she’d been an excuse for them. Part of me clearly didn’t want to give up my insecurities, and painting her in my mind as a judgmental person I needed to impress had given me an excuse to hang on to them. She didn’t have any power over me that I hadn’t given her. This meant that I could take that power back . . . if I chose to.
My second realization was more surprising: I was jealous of Sherry. I believed her to have a carefree and confident life, without doubts or regrets or angst. I wanted that for myself, but instead of trying to learn from Sherry’s self-assuredness by asking her for advice or guidance, I’d judged her as though she didn’t deserve it. It had been easier to point fingers at others than at myself. Worst of all, I should have known better. I’d learned long ago that the anorexic voice that told me I wasn’t good enough was the exact same voice that whispered critiques of other women in my ear. It was a dangerous cycle: Just as my perfectionism rendered other women a threat deserving of cynical assessment, the very act of judging other women only fed into my own insecurities. I couldn’t point this critical voice at others without being scorched myself, and vice versa.
Once I’d calmed down, I knew what to do: If I wanted to take power back from the fictional version of Sherry that I’d built up in my head, I’d have to get to know the real version. I needed to talk to Sherry and to keep an open mind while doing so. I’d made some harmful assumptions, and it was time to challenge them.
• • •
THAT EVENING I WROTE DOWN A LIST OF QUESTIONS I WANTED to ask Sherry. The prospect of what I was about to do made me feel ner
vous, but I calmed myself by going into research mode. I’d conducted dozens of interviews before, asking women about their experiences with body image and beauty culture. I’d be okay if I could just stop thinking of Sherry as my mother-in-law and see her as another interesting woman with a unique story to share.
In the morning I read my list of questions out loud to Michael over breakfast. He seemed a little squeamish. This surprised me. After our conversation the night before, I’d expected him to be excited by what I was about to do.
“Why do you look so nervous?” I asked. “You’re not the one calling her!”
“I don’t know,” he said, sighing. “I just can’t imagine asking her stuff like this. I don’t really talk to my mom about the surgeries anymore. Every time she has a new one it terrifies me. She could go under anesthesia and never wake up . . .” His voice trailed off while he seemed to think more about it. “I never know what to say, especially after the procedure. I know she wants me to call her to ask how she’s doing, and to compliment her ‘new look’ once she’s recovered . . . but I worry that acknowledging any of that stuff would just encourage her to start planning the next one. I couldn’t live with myself if I acted okay with all of it and then something horrible happened.”
It surprised me to hear him say this much, but I knew that these issues were particularly fresh on his mind; at that very moment Sherry was recovering from a partial face-lift she’d had a few weeks prior.
“Well, is there anything you want me to ask her about?” I offered.
“No, it’s okay,” he said. “But I think it’s good that you’re talking to her, for both of you. I think it will make her happy to hear from you while she’s recovering from this lift thing.” I hoped so.
Later that day I called Sherry. I asked her how she was feeling and if I could interview her for my blog. I explained that I wanted to know more about her experiences with cosmetic surgery, and that I thought my blog readers would be interested in the topic as well. “It’s something I’ve never interviewed anyone about. Most women try to hide it, but you don’t. I think that’s really interesting and cool,” I explained, truthfully. I did respect Sherry’s openness about her procedures; when women, particularly celebrities, deny having work done, it leaves the rest of us mere mortals feeling particularly disheartened by our inabilities to measure up.
I was grateful that Sherry didn’t hesitate before agreeing to be interviewed.
“Well, first, it’s nothing I’m ashamed of,” she began. “I’m not ashamed to tell people I’m having it done, and then afterward they won’t be shocked about it. They’d know anyway, and nobody would want to say anything. I want people to feel comfortable around me, including after a procedure. I don’t want them to feel like they can’t mention it or for people to act like they don’t notice. Since I’m not embarrassed, telling people is more about making them feel comfortable.”
I went ahead and asked the toughest question next: “So, what cosmetic procedures have you had?”
“Well, I had maxillofacial surgery on my jaw almost twenty-five years ago. It was for my bite—I was wearing down my teeth. But it also changed my look. Then I got breast implants about twenty years ago, but I removed them with my cancer surgery. The radiation and surgery had really deformed my left breast, so they did reconstruction. Since then one of ’em shrunk up again, but it’s fine. I don’t care.”
“Ummm . . . what do you mean, ‘shrunk up’?” I asked.
“Well, radiation treats your boobs like the oven treats a roast: When you cook them, they shrink and harden a bit. It’s not the same piece of meat after it comes out of the oven, right? It’s like that with radiation, even after the reconstruction surgery and new implants.”
It was an apt comparison. “Okay, I get it now,” I said, before asking a question I’d just thought of. “Did having breast cancer change the way you think of your body?” Her answer surprised me.
“I feel like I’m supposed to say yes, but it just didn’t. I was relieved about my breast reconstruction, but I mostly just tried to get on with my life. I survived cancer, but I don’t think of myself as a cancer survivor. It’s not my identity. It happened to me, but didn’t change the direction of my life,” she explained, before adding, “By the way, I saw my oncologist today and got the green light for another six months!”
That was good news indeed! “That’s fantastic!” I exclaimed. “Congratulations and thanks for sharing the news! Michael is going to be so happy to hear this.”
“Yeah, it feels good,” Sherry confirmed, in what was surely a great understatement.
She stopped after this, and I took it as a cue to get back to my questions. “Okay, so getting back on topic, what other procedures have you had done?”
“I had a brow lift and I got my eyelids done. That was several years ago. And then just a few weeks ago I got a lift for my lower face and neck. It was called a something-a-plasty, but I don’t remember the exact word! I’m still healing from that.”
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Well, everything feels really tight and swollen right now, but I think it’ll look great in about a month. I’m excited for you to see it when you visit for Christmas!”
“Cool!” I said, not knowing the correct response. I was curious, of course.
I thought about Michael as I asked the next questions: “Having surgery can be dangerous, and I know that the recovery is painful. Have you ever thought, Gosh, this isn’t worth it?”
She responded confidently, “No, I’ve always been pleased with my results, and I don’t dwell on the procedure. I just think of the outcome. Frankly, after all the surgeries I had with my cancer, and on my feet—my foot bones got destroyed by the chemo—well, I’m used to medical procedures, and at least these are ones I want to be having!” She had a point there. After hearing this, part of me wondered whether choosing to have elective cosmetic surgeries was a way for Sherry to feel in control of her body again after her cancer. I decided to not bring it up. Nobody likes being overanalyzed without asking for it first.
“I know that Michael thinks you already look beautiful, and he worries about you when you have surgery. How have your other family members reacted?” I hoped Sherry’s response would help Michael understand his mom better.
“Well, after my brow lift my dad told me that I didn’t need to be doing all this stuff to myself. I actually didn’t tell my parents about this last procedure because I didn’t want them to worry about it. Their health isn’t great. I wasn’t planning to tell the kids for the same reason. I don’t want them to worry, either. But I’m not afraid that they’ll try to talk me out of things, since that’s pretty impossible once I’ve made my mind up.” I hoped Michael would feel less responsibility for his mom’s decisions after learning this.
She continued: “Doug, my husband, knows that I’m very hardheaded and that I’m not gonna let it go. After listening to me for months, he just says, ‘Oh, go ahead and do it if that’s what you want.’ Since he’s busy and not particularly happy about my surgeries, I don’t ask him to do anything for me while I’m recovering. I even took a cab on the morning of my surgery. He was there for me with my cancer, but I do this on my own. I’m very independent.” So Sherry definitely knows that her family doesn’t want her to keep having cosmetic surgeries, I thought, but it’s not as though she doesn’t care about their feelings. I’d have to think more about this later.
Instead, I asked, “So I’ve got to ask: Have your surgeries made you more confident about your looks?”
She responded with certainty: “Absolutely. I’m very vain about my personal appearance and how I look. I like my face; I don’t want to change my nose or eyes or features, but I like to look younger. I love my husband very much; it’s not like I’m going out to find a new man or anything like that! But youthfulness is important to me, and I think about how other people see me.”
She paused for a second before sharing something that really surprised me.
“I don’t know exactly how to say this, but my mom never once gave me a compliment on my looks. I was painfully thin my whole life. We’d go shopping together, and she would sigh and complain that ‘oh, the clothes won’t fit you.’ Nothing I ever did looked good enough for her. Nothing. I had buckteeth, the whole deal. They paid for braces, thankfully. Anyway, I always had low self-esteem, starting from my mother’s comments, I think. It wasn’t intentionally mean or spiteful, it was just the way she was raised. She just never made it a point to help me feel pretty. The first time she told me she loved me, I was forty or something. Anyway, I was always out looking to prove that I could be pretty. And then, once I realized I was pretty, I just kept going with it!” She laughed at this last comment, as I scribbled her words into my notebook. I didn’t want to miss a word of what she was telling me.
“Wow, I didn’t know that,” I exclaimed in surprise. I knew Sherry would be happy to talk openly about her opinions and experiences, but I’d not expected this story. I imagined Sherry as a little girl and felt a surge of emotion. “So did this change how you approached being a mom?”
She took a deep breath. “When Michael’s sister, Mandy, was born, I didn’t want a repeat of what my past was. I mean, I think that’s a big part of why I am the way I am. When Mandy was a little girl, I made sure to tell her all the time how pretty she was, and how beautiful her curly hair was. I didn’t want the first person to tell her she was pretty to be some guy trying to get down her pants. I wanted her to already have that confidence coming into adulthood, from her family. All girls deserve to feel pretty and loved, even if they have flaws.”