‘Hey Hippo!’ Those were always the first words that greeted me every day in class. Growing up as an overweight and effeminate kid in India wasn’t the easiest of times. Children can be cruel in their taunts and teasing. I paraphrase an old saying- “ Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me”, but names can leave deep scars. Ones that take years maybe decades to heal. Now when entering the third decade of my life are those scars finally healing.
This isn’t a post about delving deep into ones psyche or even a post of introspection or self reflection. My process was very superficial – it started with skincare.
Moving from India to Belgium for a Master’s degree; I was even more self-conscious than before. In a foreign land all alone without the soft embrace of my mother to hold me when I cried, none of the familiarity of old friends or warmth of the Indian sun to cheer me up – I felt alone and alienated.
The cold rainy climate, the stress of my masters program, holding down a student job combined with the social commitments of an exchange student and you had the recipe for disaster. My skin started breaking out- so along with being a little chubby and a little kooky, I also had really bad skin to deal with. To make matters worse I was diagnosed with psoriasis around my second semester.
One day while whiling away time on the internet, I came across a page on the Korean beauty routine. Initially it felt like a lot of time and money to invest- I mean 10 steps also mean 10 extra products I needed to buy, without a guarantee of a payoff. Was it worth it?
My original apprehension was about the time and money; but slowly it dawned on me- my real cause for worry was not the time I was gonna put in: I spend hours just aimlessly scrolling through social media, nor the monetary aspect: I spent way more drinking and eating out; it was the fact that I had to spend time staring in the mirror at something I came to loathe- my face. Since a young age I knew I didn’t fit it; incessantly teased for being overweight and effeminate just reinforced that. All the gay men we saw on television or online, the guys were all white, tall, skinny or muscular with beautiful jewel toned eyes and perfect hair. Not chubby, brown with dark eyes and bad skin. Over the years I came to believe I was unattractive and unworthy of love.
I needed to take some action and following this skincare routine seemed like a good place to start. Following this ten step program would mean spending more time trying to love and care for something I detested- myself. The first time was hard, I picked at all my flaws- my nose was too big, my acne scars were too deep, my eyes too small. It’s not that I had never been in front of a mirror before but I had never spent more than a few minutes before it. Now I had to spend maybe half an hour a day. It was painful to sit there staring at every single thing I hated about myself. Yet I promised my self would stick with this for a month. The first week was the most challenging I found nothing but more imperfections- a little scar that had never bothered me before, my receding hairline, blackheads and whiteheads, I found them all. But over the course of the week, I noticed didn’t mind staring back at reflection. It wasn’t that the skin care routine had dramatically transformed my appearance, but rather I was slowly learning to embrace myself. The 10 step routine forced me to feel my face and touch every nook and cranny of it. Making me realize that this is the face I have and I can either love it or keep loathing it. It gave me hope that even though I couldn’t change anything without a drastic measure but I could help transform a bit of it.
It gave me structure, a set bedtime routine, developing into something of a nighttime self care ritual, where earlier bed time comprised of falling asleep watching television. I felt clean, fresh and dare I say pretty? Following this detailed process every night made me ponder if I could follow such a structured process every night- could I be so disciplined in other aspects of life? The answer was yes, I could. I changed my diet, becoming more aware as to what I put into my body, tried to eat a little healthier; out with the kebabs and fries, in with more fruits and veggies. Started exercising more- this was indeed the hardest step for someone who was inherently lazy. Slowly and steadily every aspect of my life had structure and was changing for the better.
I don’t know if I looked better but I certainly did feel better. I felt this change permeate to other aspects of my life. Sometimes self discovery doesn’t involve deep meditative self reflection or some big life changing event, maybe all one needs is a good scrub and some moisturizer.
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