I am tired of maintaining my outsides.

I am tired of the washing, shaving, plucking, tweezing, moisturizing, medicating, shampooing, conditioning, exfoliating, cotton-swabbing, brushing, perfuming, clipping, filing, concealing, powdering, toning, disinfecting….it’s too much.

it’s too much, to maintain this outside covering. too many tiny things to remember. too many things to be judged on. no matter what. dead skin comes off in flakes. daily washings don’t prevent infection and blemishes. no amount of hot water and deep cleanser can get down to where my skin is clean and alive.

I’m not a howard-hughes-germophobe, but I hate the idea of my body, crawling with bacteria and oil and microscopic creatures. I once saw a tv special about the microorganisms that live in the human body. after seeing a magnified image of the tiny worm-like thing that lives in every eyebrow hair, I shaved off my right eyebrow.

I want to cover myself up in clothes, gloves, wear an ace bandage on my face like the invisible man. I want to pull out my finger and toenails so that I never have to cut them again, never watch the dead skin cells turn white and wrinkle in the bathtub. I want to peel off my skin and start again. new skin, scalp, hair, nails. I want to be covered in scar tissue, an exoskeleton. I want to be smooth and shiny and impenetrable to all dirt and oil and infection.

I want to be able to leave the house without makeup and feel confident. I want to never again worry about blemishes like I’m in jr. high. I want to never cancel another outing because I feel too ugly to show my face.

I find myself hating beautiful people. how dare they parade around with their smooth tan skin and perfectly waving hair? how dare they display their bare limbs and naked skin, flaunting their effortless perfection? there should be one day when all the beautiful people experience ugliness. perhaps the standards of beauty would be lowered if these people knew how hard it is for us ugly people, who try and try and still aren’t flawless. maybe they wouldn’t wrinkle their noses at my yellow teeth if they knew that I brush often and have never even had a cavity. maybe if they knew what it’s like for those of us who live every day hiding behind cover-ups and cloth, they would never again whine about a tiny pink pimple that no one can even see.

why does no one talk about this? I can’t be the only one who feels this way. talking about “body image,” aka weight, is no longer taboo. so why are people still silent about skin? it’s the same basic concept: feeling trapped in a body that society tells you is irretrievably unattractive, and having all your efforts to change it get you nowhere. if fat is a feminist issue, so is skin.

yet I can’t bring myself to go to a doctor, or buy fancy cure-alls (fyi: don’t believe the convincing judith light infomercial, that proactiv stuff is shite). I can’t bring myself to spend money on something that common sense tells me is just vanity. but when I look beyond common sense—it’s more than vanity to me. skin is the largest organ of the body. the way I look is not just vanity, it’s how others see me, it’s intrinsic to my nature and fundamental to my self-worth. I am not my body, but neither can I escape it. I can’t hide behind words forever, and my outsides are what I present to the world.

I do try to take care of it. but all my efforts do little to stop the deterioration of this body. only 19 and I’m falling apart. I’m tired of maintaining my outsides.

So tired.