the inability to glow up

why can't I fucking change? I dont know. fuck you all

It is the middle of the summer, and I only leave my house twice a week because this is the most days I can manage being normal. The other days are spent indoors, where I am sanctioned behind the comfort of my bedroom door — and where I spend hours doing nothing but scrolling on r/paranormal or r/UFOS, in which I become paranoid and convinced some extraterrestrial creature might show up any minute now, and so I also spend my nights sleepless and awake, held by some morbid fear of being captured.

I wish I was lying to you.

Every once in a while, I get this special idea. This small pivot in my head that tells me to “do it.” Buy the makeup. Spend on the clothes. Transform yourself. Become normal. I spent at least 100 hours by now learning makeup tutorials on Youtube, and I can rattle off facial proportions in my head like a troubled incel. Still, when I am standing in the middle of a Sephora, I become paralyzed with something . . . is it choice? Or the fear that even if I have the right products, I won’t actually look like the Pinterest photos I have saved on my phone? Either way, my life feels like an overdue glow-up project.

Last week, I had this eerie revelation. I am twenty. Two-zero. The first number of my age doesn’t begin with a one anymore. Why am I still waiting to attempt at being hot? This is the best time to do it, and I should: curl my hair, lift my lashes, get that expensive serum . . . in five years, my skin might droop, and my eye bags will become so prominent from the lack of sleep that even moisturizing won’t save me from the cracking of concealer on my skin.

Something needs to transform with me and it needs to happen now. But like the invisible force of gravity, I keep getting pulled back towards equilibrium. I might go a week on the clean diet and the 10,000 steps, but somewhere on the next Friday, my binge-demons emerge again and I am eating my sick like a pig. I feel like I am running out of time to do things. To be things. To be a girl, and now, a young woman.

From 13 to 18, I wore braces that made my lips pucker like a fish. I had acne and blisters that tore my face open, and I was one of those kids that wore my mask way past the end of covid. Now, I am 20 and a man told me I have only a few more years left to be hot.

And yet, nothing compels me more than the binge. Than the disappointing saunter back to un-greatness. I read my books and I binge. I do yoga to try and make me feel better, but I end up passing on on my carpet that always smells like dog-piss. I watch the sunset and I cry.

This is the only time of day where I’m not too overwhelmed with hopelessness.