This piece was written by one of our dear readers—a woman with something real to say. Each month, we handpick the best submissions for Dear Reader because we’re after that PROVOKED bite: truth, intelligence, and heart. These stories come from women our age—women who’ve lived enough to know better and still care enough to tell it anyway. Because being seen and heard matters. Because storytelling is how we stitch ourselves to one another. And because when one woman speaks her truth, another finally recognizes her own. — Susan Dabbar, Editor-in-Chief
There’s a French phrase for the kind of beauty that’s interesting instead of perfect, and it rescued me at 25. At midlife, I’m not sure it can.
My mother, who was in love with movies, thought I bore a resemblance to a young Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street and placed me on a pedestal. From a very young age, she would dress me up in fancy clothes, fishing for compliments while she played with my hair. I would smile nervously as I feared that her love was tied to my appearance.
Today, the first thing I do each morning while half asleep is give my reflection a nod of approval. I frown to see if I’m developing those dreaded 11s. I turn my head slightly and inspect the small bump on the bridge of my nose, caused by a deviated septum I never fixed.
I take longer than most to look at myself in the mirror. Sure, it’s changed a bit from my youth, and most of its quirks have receded over time, but it has taken me years to love my face all the same.
My confidence was mostly intact until I reached seventh grade. My teeth had a gap that grew worse, and I developed a habit of covering my mouth when I spoke. My mother said, “It’s okay, it’s like Lauren Hutton.” As a 12-year-old girl, I had no idea who that was.
In my 20s, friends and romantic prospects still criticized my teeth, asking me, “Why don’t you fix them? You would look so much prettier if you did.” I would say I had grown to like my imperfect smile, even though I didn’t entirely believe it. I also had to deal with a small childhood scar that ran between my eyebrows and wore long bangs to cover it up, even though that hid all my best features.
Living in New York City, I discovered European cinema, where the actresses were beautiful but looked nothing like the blonde bombshells in Hollywood movies. These women possessed a singular beauty that wasn’t always so easy to define, sporting slightly asymmetrical faces or charming overbites. I recognized myself and stopped comparing; once I did, other women became less threatening. When casting directors and agents didn’t know quite what to make of me, I felt empowered, defiant even, because I had new role models. They could either accept me or not.
This also seemed to have an effect on my love life. I never lacked for male attention, which confused me. After I complained to my boyfriend about my appearance, he turned around and looked at me with a flabbergasted expression and said, “I think you’re beautiful as you are” and asked me if I had ever heard of the French term “jolie laide”—the kind of beauty that’s interesting, not perfect.
I wasn’t sure how to react. Was this a compliment or an insult? Did that mean I wasn’t truly pretty and only beautiful to him? That wasn’t good enough for me. I felt a swell of anger rising as I searched for hints of reassurance, hoping he would say more. My confidence and self-acceptance seemed to shatter. I still wanted to be beautiful to other people.
I’m now middle-aged, and for a while I couldn’t get a good night’s sleep. My teeth would grind in the middle of the night. I’d wake up with headaches and an aching jaw before I even started my day. I was warned by my dentist, “You have to fix your teeth,” so I found myself sitting in an orthodontist’s chair with a metal plate that stretched my mouth like a medieval torture device. I tried to make myself invisible to the preteen sitting next to me. Every six weeks, I watched my gap-toothed smile disappear as the technician held a hand mirror to show me my progress.
I like my new smile, but occasionally miss my old one, the one that made me unique. That’s the price I paid for perfection, I suppose.
But I fear what I’ll look like in 10 or 20 years. Will I have the courage to resist like Paulina Porizkova and Rachel Ward, who refused to let criticism diminish their self-worth?
When I was a teen, people ridiculed my full lips. Now when I scroll past Instagram ads promising injections to plump them, I chuckle and then sigh, with a mix of amusement and despair.
Whenever I treat myself to an indulgent facial, I find myself refusing the endless options for further self-improvement offered by my aesthetician as she works a strawberry and brown sugar scrub over my forehead. She tells me all I need is one more treatment in order to achieve perfectly ageless glass skin. I ask myself, “What’s wrong with a little Botox when some people are now asking their plastic surgeons to replicate AI faces?”
My teeth are perfectly straight now, and the childhood scar has long since faded. I receive compliments again on my looks, as I did as a young girl. The funny thing is, I’m not even sure I still fit the definition of unconventional beauty. A part of me is relieved. Another part of me misses those quirks. Either way, I don’t owe anyone an apology for the face I inhabit now, not even me.
