14/08/2024
Day 5 — Triangle of sadness
I’m in the supermarket, near the deli at the back, and a woman I half-recognize approaches me as though we’re the bosomest of buddies.
“Listen,” she says.
I’m in a bit of a rush (when am I not?), but I’m sort of hooked by her over familiarity. So I do.
“I have to tell you this …”
She appears to be gazing at my forehead. Do I have ketchup on it?
“I want to say every time I see you, but I keep missing the moment!”
Mildly alarming. Is she stalking me?
“And today you left the studio before I could catch you … “
Ah! Of course! She belongs to the fitness studio where I teach! Oh thank god. But still, what is she burning to tell me?
“ … so I’m so glad I bumped into you here!”
I nod and smile. I’d really like her to spit it out now.
“Now, clearly you’ve decided against Botox, or you would’ve already had it.”
Botox? What???
“So I want to show you how you can massage your brow there, just with a little oil, and it’ll really make a difference. I mean, it’s not Botox of course, but it could really help.”
And she’s actually coming at me with her thumbs! What the actual f**k?
It takes me a beat, but I realize in horror that she’s talking about the inverted V-shape of creases between my eyebrows. Granted, I have two furrows in my “triangle of sadness” that you could plant crops in, but I had no idea they were so serious as to warrant the emergency intervention of a near-stranger by the fish counter.
I manage to politely swerve her kind attentions, and make straight for the checkout — but I'm shaken. So much so, that I make an appointment to have Botox treatment the next day.
It’s shocking to me now that I did that. That I voluntarily chose to have a paralysing poison injected directly into my third eye. But on the other hand it’s not that surprising. After all, it was just one more way to numb my true expression in favor of a more acceptable presentation.
I heard the other day that the word “confront” comes from the latin, meaning “with face”. I wonder about the ways in which we freeze and mask our faces, in order to be less confronting.
It’s not easy to be real AND live in the real world. True expression always upsets someone because it confronts them with something they don’t like. But surely that has to be a price worth paying to feel whole — and free others to feel the same?
LOVEYOUBYE! 🔻🚩⚠️
G xx
(This story is #5 in a series about expression, exploring what it means to be real.)