blogger profile

Kelly Love Johnson

Skirt! managing editor

Writer, editor, author, independent girly feminist hipster, slightly neurotic, cynically optimistic, compassionately liberal, fiscally conservative, somewhat intellectual, and always irreverent. ...

READ MORE

Vanity, thy name is woman?

I’m always the first to own up to the fact that I’m a vain one, but it has less to do with the fact that I’m a woman and more to do with being human. I think men and women are equally vain, though we might demonstrate it in different ways.

Most recently, I have been afflicted with what I thought was my fourth sty on my right eye in the same number of months. If you’ve ever had one of these, you know what I’m talking about. They look utterly hideous. The last time (before this one) it got so bad that I worked from home for two days so that I didn’t have to go out in public and suffer looks of (my interpretation here) “how hideous!” This time, when my eye began to swell and it hurt to blink, I figured I’d give the eye doctor a call.

Turns out, it isn’t a sty at all (something I should have figured out maybe the second or third time it showed up on the same eye in the same place), but a chalazion (no, I’d never heard of it either). Simply put, just  a “lump” on my eye that kept getting reinfected. I had it taken care of and would rather not go into details here, so back to my original point about vanity.

(a) I can’t wear makeup until the swelling goes down. I don’t like to leave the house without makeup on unless I’m going to the gym. And sometimes I wear makeup to the gym.

(b) It’s swollen and I feel like I look like Gollum (whimpering ”musn’t hurt the precious!” as I cower in a dark corner).

(c) I made it to the office this morning without the benefit of dark shades, an eye patch, or large hat pulled down over my face. However, I do plan to hide out in my little corner as much as possible and I’m definitely not going to work out at the gym next to teeny little 20-somethings who will judge me disgusting and make sure there are two treadmills between us.

I know there are people in this world who live every day with terrible afflictions. I would never judge them; so why do I think people would judge me for a gross eye thingy? Because I am vain and being pretty is important to me. Not as important as being smart, but that’s the way the world works, folks. Pretty people are treated better. I wish it didn’t affect me (and maybe if I could stop reading fashion mags and watching all the pretty people on E!, it wouldn’t). I wish I could throw out my cosmetics, my expensive shampoo, my Spanx, my push up bras, my contact lenses, my razor, and my tweezer. But I have the same addiction the rest of America has: Beauty.

I consider my most recent malady punishment from the Universe for my vanity and accept it as such. And I’m hoping it will make me want to be a better (as opposed to beautiful) person. Because, as a good friend of mine often says, “God don't like ugly, but he ain't particular about pretty either.”