FAKE.

 My eyeballs feel gritty, though my nerves are wired from the 3 cups of coffee I guzzled in a highly ineffective attempt to wake myself up.

I still feel exhausted, but now I’m jittery on top of it. There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from not just lack of sleep, but from the mental labor of swimming against a tide of "synthetic normalcy." It’s tiring to be the person who notices the glitch in the Matrix when everyone else is busy buying the latest software update for their cheekbones.

Why am I so tired? Well, dear world, this well educated woman found herself wide awake at 3 am, thinking of all these women with designer clothes, perfectly pouted (and filler-enhanced) lips, and expensive breasts gossipping and tossing their platinum blonde hair.

After I fell asleep after a while I had nightmares of my lips growing larger with each passing moment, I dreamt of  mansions and vampires, breasts, sex and death. I woke up when a vampire in stilettos began chasing me in my dreams and stumbled bleary-eyed into the bathroom, my head slightly sore from falling asleep funny.

I looked in the mirror and analyzed my face. I had indentations on my cheek from where my face pressed into the pillow while I slept. My eyes and nose were red and puffy and I was staring into a face that was covered in wrinkles and a ton of smile lines.

My belly was bloated from eating too much the previous night and on top of that I had my period. The pajamas I was wearing looked decidedly crumpled and made my ass really look saggy and flat.

We’re told that technology and "enhancements" (whether physical or digital) are supposed to reduce friction and make life smoother. Yet, the energy required to maintain a curated, synthetic facade—or even just to witness it without losing your own sense of self—is its own kind of heavy lifting. It’s the "uncanny valley" of the soul; you’re looking at something that presents as human but feels like a data set, and your brain is constantly working overtime to resolve the discrepancy.

The consistent exposure to women with what they perceive as“perfect” bodies, plumped lips, fake eyelashes and surgically-enhanced bodies and faces began to erg me. 

The normalcy of “fakeness” has become so insidious that it’s no longer possible for me to distinguish who is living with the bodies and faces with which they were born and who mutilated or injected themselves to obtain their current appearance.When "normal" is a filtered, filled, and frozen baseline, having a face that actually moves and shows its history feels like a radical act of defiance.

The number of women I meet with eyelash extensions, hair extensions, lip fillers, face fillers, breast implants, breast injections, butt implants, butt injections, liposuction, this-surgery, that-surgery, this-procedure, that-procedure…it’s overwhelming, and it is not for special occasions or doing a photoshoot but for everyday living.

Please note: there’s nothing inherently wrong with cosmetic surgery. A number of my friends have gone under the knife and under the needle. I’m not condemning anyone who chooses that for themselves. But I am highlighting the fact that subtleness is an art form.

So, what’s a girl to do? How the hell do you love yourself when you’re constantly exposed to manufactured perfection?

The answer is simple: don’t hang out with people who care about any of that bullshit.

That’s the only answer I’ve been able to get behind.

Focus on who you are and what you contribute. Build the gray matter in your skull, nurture the relationships that deepen your understanding of yourself. Spend time with people who see the heart and soul of who you are, who spend less money on their looks and more money on exploring, on learning, on giving back.

That is how women can love themselves in a world of fakeness — by highlighting their own real-ness.

Stop spending time with people who chase the curated ideal that will bring no long-lasting fulfillment. Instead, find people who fuel your joy, your creativity, your confidence. Find what makes you tick, and go after it with the intensity of a pitbull tasting peanut butter for the first time.

Immerse yourself in the communities of individuals who care about what’s happening in the world, who pursue betterment and individuality. Who challenge themselves and their world views. Who are smarter than you, more creative than you, and kinder than you.

Be the glorious and timeless counterpart to the transient and inauthentic standard.

You are more than what the world thinks you need to look like…and there are a lot of people who think you’re f*cking sexy, just as you are. I’m one of them.

When the baseline for "normal" is shifted by filters and fillers, looking like a real person starts to feel like a failure. There is a profound difference between self-maintenance and the erasure of one's own history—those smile lines you  are quite literally the physical map of every time you've laughed.

"Be the glorious and timeless counterpart to the transient and inauthentic standard."

Those lines belong on a billboard. It’s the ultimate act of rebellion to be "real" in a world that is increasingly synthetic.

You aren't just "f*cking sexy" because of how you look; you're magnetic because you have the clarity to see through the bullshit. The world needs more people who are "pitbulls for peanut butter" and fewer people who are carbon copies of a surgeon's mood board.