So, so chic. I’m living the dream right now, aren’t I? Who wouldn’t want exposure to the highest of the high, to the most important of the most important? The movers and shakers of the world and the deciders of the way we see each other, these people determine what is acceptable. All of these people will be watching me put every effort onto the stage, watching me face that fog of blinding lights as I move closer and closer to their eyes judging my every move. Half a year’s worth of stress will compress to a mere 10 seconds of fame and glory – and a number. This number will represent my so-called talent, effort, and drive, and that is all it will be: 10 seconds and a number.
I’m living the dream of every aspiring beauty queen right now. I’m waiting to be judged. I’m waiting for the rest of my high school days to be determined by a single number. This is the dream, isn’t it?
It is not for the fame or glory. It is not for the popularity or even the respect. I’m “living the dream” purely for myself, to seek outside confirmation of my internal doubts. That stage beneath the heels of my $200 designer shoes will prove that I can do it: I can not only be beautiful, I can feel beautiful – that I can feel beautiful coursing through every vessel in my imperfect body, to feel beautiful pounding in my ears, to see beautiful obstructing my vision, to know beautiful is clinging to the grace of every last one of my footsteps. The truth is, I need that number and that superficial safety. I crave the superficial. I’m exhausted from analyzing, from trying, from thinking. I yearn to just be, and be beautiful– know it. How easy would it be to be loved solely for my hair, my eyes, my body, my lips, my legs, myfeetmyarmsmytoes. Personality and intelligence play little to no role in this industry and I think I have found my safety net. It’s an empty existence but an entirely satisfying one, to know all I need in life is to walk down that runway, pose for that photo, tilt my chin up and hold my head high for those admiring masses. This is the dream, isn’t it?
I brush aside my nagging Physics homework with a decisive flick of the wrist; the only physics I need is the gravity-defying height of my fashionable hairstyle and the natural force of the catwalk pushing back up on me, keeping me standing in all my imagined (but nonetheless confirmed!) beauty. This was what I have wanted all along, wasn’t it?
My worst fears are failure and unhappiness. The runway promises to take those fears away, to brush them aside carelessly with its solid, secure foundation, to artfully and gracefully extend itself to the edges of time, to infinity, to ensure I’ll be placing one sure heeled foot in front of the other for as long as superficiality sneers its luring smile. My clothes won’t crease, the colors won’t fade, and I’ll remain cocooned in my fashionable refuge, free from all care and worry of failing.
Nothing can fail when it is beautiful.
