I don’t understand the idea behind vanity sizing. I mean, when a pair of Target size 2 pants fits am I supposed to be all, look at that, I must have miraculously reduced in size by several inches since entering this store, I wonder if it happened when I trundled my giant squeaky red cart into the Easter candy aisle in order to load up on those discount Reese’s peanut butter cup eggs? Let’s go back and do it again, maybe I can get down to a ZERO and I will turn INVISIBLE and then I can spy on people masturbating like Ceiling Cat! There is no non-Target universe in which I am a size 2, and I’m not saying I wish I was a 2 or that I’m glad I’m not a 2, it’s just that, you know, I don’t wear a size 2. If I’m going to buy clothing at Target I’d prefer to just chuck it unexamined into the cart along with the laundry detergent and dog food and baby wipes, not be forced to deploy some sort of weird-ass algorithm where I subtract one size if it’s a dress, subtract two sizes if it’s a pair of pants, and add 14 sizes if it’s one of those superthin t-shirts that seems custom-designed to lovingly display every outcropping and indentation of a person’s personal collection of backfat, then head into the dressing room where the clerk is on the phone and apathetically hurls the numbered plastic thing at me and the room I pick always looks like the Katrina Superdome and good luck getting out of the built-in “power mesh control slip” in that one black dress why wasn’t there a WARNING on this Merona-branded bear trap, MEDIC.

Also, I’m now shopping in the BOYS section for Riley and it’s depressing. Not only because I can’t find a single pair of jeans that will fit him in length without drooping halfway off his bony rear end and revealing his Spiderman underwear, but because all the adorable dinosaur/robot/helicopter-themed shirts have been replaced with obnoxious sports graphics or sub-par Marvel characters. There’s even a Shaun White line of boys’ clothing at Target and listen, it’s not that I can’t accept the idea of my preschooler wearing a shirt blaring SHRED! on it, it’s that if it does include such a sentiment then it should also feature a cartoon block of cheese because at least that shit would be funny.

Finally, you should know that the whole reason I went to Target in the first place was to check out this Liberty of London stuff everyone’s been raving about on Twitter and I was kind of expecting gun-toting sharks or antigravity boots or something cool, but no, it was just a bunch of stuff like hats and plastic bowls and binders and I guess the thing that makes it special is that it all has flowers on it. And I guess I can forgive you, internet, for getting all gushy over a collection of floral patterns, but then I saw this godforsaken thing:

flowershirt

And I had to gouge out my eyes with a nearby Liberty of London-branded ballpoint pen so basically you all owe me new eyeballs in addition to an explanation for why I don’t have that bag of Reese’s candy on my desk right now.

I think I am far more self conscious than vain, but really, they amount to the same sort of behaviors: mirror-peering, hair-fiddling, fingernail-examining. I have a Covergirl compact—oh, that nostalgic drugstore-powdery smell—which I keep at my desk in order to click it open approximately ten thousand times per day and . . . what, exactly? Make sure I’m still there? I suppose I think I’m checking to make sure there’s nothing caught between my teeth or some such explainable behavior, but often I find myself transfixed by a catalogue of flaws revealed by the natural light pouring from the window behind me. A creeping network of lines, the visible surface of makeup settling into creases, dark crescents under my eyes, this overall sense of sag that seems to have become so prevalent in the last year or so.

Sometimes I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and place the tips of my index fingers high up on my cheekbones, just so, and pull ever so slightly up and back. A millimeter, maybe less. Just that tiny adjustment makes such a difference, my god. The skin is smoothed, the unpleasant parentheses that curve down from the side of my nose to the corners of my mouth are lessened. I look younger, I guess, although the effect feels less to me like rolling back the years and more like smoothing out a crumpled bedsheet to what it’s supposed to look like.

This faded, tired-looking woman—where did the color in my lips go? Where did that vertical line between my eyebrows come from? When did the soft elasticity of my skin get replaced with this new stuff that catches every shadow?—I must be her, and she is me, and this must be a natural part of getting older, but . . . well, but.

In some ways, I think I’m less focused on my appearance than I used to be. I don’t buy clothes or makeup very often any more; I’ve mostly lost interest in adornments like jewelry, shoes, and purses. The collection of shampoo containers that used to litter the floor of the shower have been replaced by a value-sized bottle of something-or-other from Costco. I look at my scritchy, running-callused feet with their unpainted toenails and shrug: what’re you gonna do?

I’m not sure if I’ve adjusted my values or if I’ve simply become cheap and lazy. Maybe a little of both.

Still, the body’s wear and tear does not please me. I know I should accept these matters, that it’s impossible to hold back what comes naturally without vigilant effort, large amounts of money, and a good dash of luck. It’s shallow and pointless and why focus on the surface details when there are so many more rich and interesting aspects to life, so many other ways to feel good about yourself? It’s ridiculous to obsess over the fact that I look like exactly what I am: a grown woman with a busy, rewarding life.

(But do you see how much better I look, do you see, if I just go like this?)

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