You know those moments when you look in the mirror and you can count about a million flaws on one-half inch of your face? You scramble to fix your under-eye bags and your discolored complexion before someone tells you, “you look tired.” 

But as soon as you are content with that aspect of your appearance, and you’ve used half of your thirty-dollar concealer tube on one pimple, the hair you could have sworn you washed yesterday appears to be way too shiny. Not in the silky, sought-after, magazine-cover way, but instead in a rather greasy and dirty-looking way.

So now your once bouncy curls have lost all flamboyance and it’s left you feeling overwhelmed.  In an attempt to hide yet another flaw, you turn to your trusty braiding skills. And sure enough, your oily hair is now pulled out of your face, strategically twisted into French braids.

However, while admiring your work, you realize that without your long bleach-filled locks hanging on either side of your face, your seemingly little ears now stick out just a tad too far.

You frantically dig to the depths of your jewelry box, detangling the era of old friendship necklaces, praying you find a pair of gold hoops big enough to hide your ears, yet small enough to savor your “oh so delicate appearance.” 

Once satisfied with that, you look down and notice that the buckle on your belt—that was cinched two notches too tight—is silver and completely clashes with the gold hoops you just slipped into the ear-piercings you’ve had since you were eight.

You take it off, deeming it to live amongst the other outfits that weren’t good enough and search for yet another combination of jeans, crop top, and sweater. Even though the fear of being called basic is constantly looming overhead. 

Eventually, you find an outfit that appeases your skin tone, flatters your body, and makes you feel pretty, but also confident. You take a long look in the full-length mirror that’s been hanging on your once-purple-now-gray walls for as long as you can recall. 

There are only a few minutes left before you’re supposed to leave, and you realize there is a single salty tear rolling off the tip of your freshly curled lashes and onto your flustered face. The tear signifies to the rest of the world the distress you just went through in an attempt to meet every standard that’s expected of you.

But crying about your appearance only makes you weak and shallow, so you wipe it from your rosy, blush-coated cheeks and feel disheartened because sometimes it feels impossible to be beautiful. But you push forth. 

You step out the door in the heels that give you blisters in twelve different places because you know, “beauty is pain,” or so you’ve been told your entire life.

Just for someone, a man, to ask you, “what took you so long to get ready?”