Dark Circles Are Good

This is a post about something that makes me so angry and sad and frustrated. Imperfections, we call them, and even that word feels like a judgement. Eye bags and scars and stretch marks and spots and wrinkles and warts and moles and frizzy hair and whatever else. Who cares. I am sick of it. I am sick of the obsessiveness with which we assess our bodies.

I tried to Google several variants of "dark circles are good" to see if there were people writing about how these flaws aren't even flaws. All I found were endless articles and posts about how you can get rid of them. All using this negative, self-destructive language to talk about our faces, our bodies.

I need to write this for anyone like me who is searching for something to tell them what they know is true: that the way bodies look doesn't have an inherent value judgement attached. Ugly is just a word for a perception. It's not a truth. And all the quirks of bodies that I mentioned above, and lots more still, are fine. They're fine. There is nothing you need to cover up or hide.

I am sick and tired of hearing apologies from people for, well, having a face. For not changing it, covering it up before I saw it. For existing, almost. I am sick of being told I look tired and having spots pointed out to me as if I have a scale model of the Tokyo Tower on my face and not a small, temporary inflammation. No one should express any surprise or concern over me for a spot or a line on my skin. It's like being surprised that someone has a nose.

Get used to seeing faces and get used to having one. They're not smooth or all one colour or symmetrical. Bodies are bodies. Weird in a million ways. But they're real. And I love all those details. Wrinkles and dimples like rivers and lakes, scars telling stories, stretch marks because your skin grew with you to keep you safe. Sometimes these are the physical things I love most about people I love. And as for me, I've got a little round scar right in the middle of my forehead. It's a landing spot for all my inspiration.