'My beauty comes from being seen by my daughters. Their love is the most beautiful thing about me.'
We're watching an Instagram video on my phone — a hair tutorial by a gorgeous redhead with a mane so perfect that I feel physical pangs of jealousy. I make a passing comment, a fleeting observation about how much I love her hairstyle. I don't think twice about my remark, but Shira clearly does.
My tangled hair is knotted in her faded pink scrunchie. I'm wearing pajamas older than she is, most likely an impulse buy from a sale bin. I feel aged and distinctly unattractive, as someone who has spent most of the past year homebound, moping around in sweatpants as her makeup collects dust in an unopened bathroom drawer.
A comically awful combination of puffy '90s bangs, oversize flannel shirts, ill-fitting jeans, and a home hair dye disaster only compounded the problem. As I injected my daily growth hormone shot, I would fantasize about shopping in the junior's section and getting my first boyfriend, all seeming possible as soon as I passed the five-foot threshold. I believed the right"outside" would fix everything"inside," the greatest delusion of beauty.