On letting yourself go: reflections of the beauty myth from the departure lounge

Another day, another airport.

Yet again I’ve managed to pack up my stuff and move towns on 14 days notice; this time I’m heading back to the desert for two months to work on a festival. Driving back from dropping off the last of my stuff at my parents my mum took my hand and told me that she was proud of the way I live my life; I’m incredibly lucky to have parents that support me in the pursuit of my dreams, as unconventional and chaotic as they may be.

“You follow the things that matter to you” she said.

“Not always” I replied “Some days I get hung up on these idiotic small things and they cripple me, perhaps even more so because I know how superfluous they are.”

Take the beauty myth; I know that an obsession with physical appearance is drilled into women (and men) from a young age as a means of social control; I know that my self worth is based on more than the shape of my eyebrows and my hip to waist ratio; hell, I even look in the mirror most days and feel pretty damn good about the reflection (which wasn’t always the case).

Still, in the last few months I’ve been plauged by poor body image; carving up my body into bits that I like or don’t like, as though I were some kind of social media news feed and there are parts of me that are worthy of sharing and ones that should be trashed. Despite hours of scrolling through feminist manifestos, all the Naomi Wolfe wannabes in the world haven’t been able to save me from the cold hard gaze of my ego.

And the experts don’t help.

Walking into a beauty salon I’m suddenly reduced to an imbecile as I’m led through the various options for perfecting my flaws. Through caked skin and mink eyelash implants the therapist gives me a long stare.

“You haven’t done this much before” she says.

“No” I say.

“Hmm, some women do prefer to let themselves go.”

Damn right, I wanna say, I do let myself go; anywhere I damn well please in fact, which at this point in time is right out that front door and as far the hell away from you and your weird contraptions of torturous manipulation as I possibly can.

But I don’t. I shut my mouth and let her talk me through the options of reducing this and accentuating that and even book myself an appointment which I later cancel.

And I’m not the only one.

The more I’ve talked to other women about this the more I realise that some of the smartest, spunkiest babes I know suffer from the same fate; one friend wishes she had bigger breasts, another complains about sagging skin; when I hear them deride their appearance my feminist rage jumps up on the table and starts waving her fists at the sky.

But I understand.

We all want to be loved and desired, and in a branded world we’re increasingly concerned with ensuring that we’re one of the best looking products on the shelf. I don’t want to compete with my sister but sometimes I do; everything in popular culture is telling me to act a certain way and being different is sometimes painfully isolating.

And that’s why it’s so important to be reminded that who we are now is worth being proud of; that we’re deeply loveable with all of our foibles, and that each of us is an inspiration to each other.

I’m eternally grateful to the support of my family and friends; without them I wouldn’t be able to keep pursuing this crazy beautiful life of mine that sees me travelling the country and the world to work on projects that inspire me.

As the boarding call rolls in the background I make the decision to leave my insecurities behind me, and let myself go, wherever my dreams take me.