There’s a Polish joke about a frog. One day, Lion, the king of the jungle, says to all the animals, “Okay gang! The Smart ones to the left, and the Attractive ones to the right.” The animals panic and run around for a while, the Monkey gets all up in arms about a lion living in the jungle in the first place in this joke, a blind armadillo has to be pushed out of the way a few times, some bird trips and falls; it’s chaos in other words. But in the end they figure it out, except for the Frog who sits right in the middle blinking at the Lion. “Why did you not pick a side?” says the Lion angrily. “How am I supposed to split myself in two?!” says the Frog. (It’s funnier in Polish and when you’re five years old.)
My sister Ania and I call one particular predicament “the Frog.” We use it mostly when we talk about dating, both of us recently single in our late 40s and dealing with the diminished currency of an ageing female. We joke about whether to try to impress them with our smarts or keep trying being hot – which is tricky when you’re not 25 – and, usually, we decide that we’re happy being single and with our dogs. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, I’m just saying that while trying not to burst into tears because deep inside I am terrified of dying alone.
But this is not a post about being single or preferring dogs to relationships – instead, it’s a post about appearance. All my life, I used to say that I cannot wait to be a grandmother when I will no longer have to worry about that stuff; I’ve looked forward to the years that many women say turn them invisible. I’m exhausted being judged on my appearance – most of all by my own self because I’m the worst. I’m not particularly insecure but I’ve struggled with appearance-related issues1 as many women have. Yet I pretended that I don’t because this is yet one of those things nobody talks about — if you do, people tend to think this is about lack of confidence or you are trying to fish for compliments.
Behind the proverbial closed doors, we tell our girl friends about our diets and our wrinkles and stomach rolls and cellulite, etc. But in public, we are supposed to either look like we don’t care at all – performance eating French Fries and making self-deprecating jokes about our bodies – or we kill ourselves (sometimes literally) and our banking accounts trying to look young and hot.
Or we make peace with those grandma years and declare that it’s cool to be invisible and that it doesn’t hurt even a little bit.
These days, I really try to pay attention to my vulnerabilities and when they come up, I drag them out, face them and try to deal with them. In the past, like everything else, I hid them and hoped they would go away, except they never would go away and instead they would show up tripled in size. If most living things need sunlight to grow and thrive, dark things grow bigger when they’re hidden like those cordyceps mushrooms from that popular tv show about a zombie apocalypse. What’s underneath is what kills you and what’s on the surface is a lie. You are not who you are.
Who I am is someone who wishes she cared less. My hangup about appearance is not something I need to be debated on or encouraged to get over — it’s just something I’m aware of being a thing I don’t admit to myself often but it keeps coming up so here I am, dragging it out into the light.
Now, how does this relate to the Frog? Well, the other day, I did a popular, super fun podcast2 where I was asked to speak about the subject of shame —mostly in the context of addiction — and that was both video- and audio-recorded. The night before, I went out to get one of those magic face goops that is supposed to turn you a decade younger by erasing your pores. I smeared that under some foundation and put on a bit of makeup, I installed a ring light like an influencer, and then I did the interview. We talked about some tough subjects, things like addiction, recovery, denial, relapse, and so on. I’ve prepared my face but otherwise I wasn’t prepared because I like the spontaneity and despite freestyling, I felt smart and was happy with how it went. We did zero second takes. The interviewer was intelligent and funny and asked great questions, steered us into some really fascinating topics, naturally and, overall, it was a success.
A few days later I got the links to the podcast and when I played it all I could think about was how bad I looked, tired and, yes, older and how terrible the lighting was, or maybe how I was terrible and no good lighting could help me anyway. The point is not that maybe some (all?) of that was in my head — and that I judged myself harshly or maybe that that’s just the reality of ageing — but the fact that the content of the conversation and how well it went and how I did say some interesting things, was all secondary because I got stuck on how it all looked.
And that is sad. It’s sad that what actually really mattered about such a cool thing I did was reduced to me dreading having people SEE it, where all that was really important about it was having people HEAR it. So like the Frog I remained stuck in the middle but not because it was impossible to choose my inside beauty vs what’s on the outside. But because I was too embarrassed about caring so much about something I’ve been so indoctrinated to care about even though I realize picking the Left side is where I should park my froggy ass.
Anyway, it was a great podcast and here’s the audio.
… being born a girl, growing up with a mother who was once a girl, growing up in the 90s, growing up and reading magazines for girls – that teach girls how to survive on salads alone while also chastising you for worrying about your appearance – working for a health magazine that always told us we needed to get our bodies back and our asses were a disgrace to humanity, being in the world where woman’s value is measured by either the thinnes – the 90s – or the thickness – most recently – of her thighs, having thighs, having a nose, having lips, having eyelids, having cheekbones, having a chin, having breasts, and on and on and on and on…
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