By which I mean, to be skinny and beautiful and loved.
I'm restricting and I still feel like a failure. Like a fraud. Like an obese, ugly monster.
Sometimes I catch my reflection in the mirror and it takes my breath away. My reflection is always large and whale-like - I have no illusions there. But sometimes I look into a mirror and don't believe that the beautiful face with the smouldering blue eyes and sarcastically-playful smirk can possibly be me. I feel vain, and then I feel guilty for feeling vain, because my face does not make up for the mass of lard that is my body.
But then, when I'm at home and all of the makeup is scrubbed off and I can see the bare skin underneath... I cringe and wonder what I ever saw in myself that could possibly be beautiful. My beauty is false, and I only ever feel pretty when my mask is fully in place.
I feel like I will never be perfect. I will never attain the state of grace and beauty that I want. I don't deserve to attain it. No matter how far I restrict, even if I turned to purging and became best friends with Mia - no matter how hard I exercise or starve, I will never be beautiful.
No matter how skinny and fabulous my body becomes - Yes, maybe one day I'll have ribs and hipbones and pelvic bones and clavicles and bumps down my spine, but what use is the perfect body when it's attached to the face of a horse? - the truth is that the only true beauty I will ever have is that which I meticulously paint upon my countenance each morning. And even that is a lie.
And THAT is the reason why I spend so much money on high-brand makeup.
Because the mask I create for myself every day is the closest I will ever come to being something worth looking at. And it might be a lie, but it's all I have.
