… genie in a bottle.

When I was a kid, I rarely looked in the mirror. Honestly, I didn’t even notice until freshman year cheer practice that other girls’ legs weren’t cut up, bruised, and slightly hairy like mine. See, I was more worried about having fun. Playing. Getting dirty, sweaty, muddy, scraped up — whatever the day had in mind.

I was worried about playing touch football with my older brother and his friends in the pouring rain on the fairway behind our house. I was worried about catching crawdads, riding bikes until dark, and coming home smelling like sunshine and outside.

Beyond that, or maybe because of that, I honestly didn’t notice how “perfect” people looked. I didn’t study their bodies. I didn’t compare myself to how toned or skinny somebody else was. Truthfully, the only time I ever really noticed someone’s body was if they were morbidly obese.

Today, though? Vanity is at an all-time high, and we are judging the absolute fire out of one another because of it.

Now listen, I’m going to be honest here. I like looking nice. I value taking care of myself. I work hard to stay in shape and maintain my appearance. There is nothing wrong with wanting to feel good in your own skin.

But somewhere along the way, we crossed over into obsession.

We are so daggum driven by perfection that we constantly pick ourselves and everybody else apart. We are spending enormous amounts of money, time, energy, and mental bandwidth trying not to age, not to wrinkle, not to sag, not to have pores, texture, cellulite, or imperfections.

And for what?

To impress strangers on the internet?

To compare ourselves more favorably to other people?

To chase some impossible standard nobody can actually maintain in real life?

I look around sometimes and think there is no way on God’s green earth we are ever getting this genie back into the bottle.

For a little while, “strong was the new skinny.” But honestly, I don’t even think that’s true anymore. Now it feels like we are expected to be strong, skinny, toned, wrinkle-free, effortlessly beautiful, perfectly styled, organically healthy, and somehow also never age a single day past 27.

It’s exhausting.

The other day I was talking to my dermatologist about a few concerns I had about my face. She took a close look and basically told me she didn’t really notice the things I was pointing out. Now, I trust this woman. She’s not the type to blow smoke or just tell me what I want to hear.

Then she asked me a question that honestly stopped me in my tracks.

“Do you use one of those high-powered magnifying mirrors at home?”

And I do.

My everyday mirror literally magnifies my imperfections. It enlarges every pore, every fine line, every tiny little thing that no normal human being would ever notice standing in front of me. And if I’m being truthful, sometimes those tiny things can affect my mood for the entire day.

That can’t be healthy.

Look, I’m not saying I’m about to throw caution to the wind and stop taking care of myself. This whole little rant actually started while I was sitting alone in my house watching Baby Boom with a glass of wine in my hand.

And I started thinking about when I first watched that movie years ago and how different everything feels now.

How different life looks.

How much more judgmental people have become.

How critical.

How envious.

How performative.

Somewhere along the line, we started believing perfection was what brings happiness.

But it’s a lie.

And these lies we keep spreading and consuming are corrupting our youth. They are stealing the innocence right out from under kids and turning them into anxious little perfection chasers before they are even old enough to know who they are.

And trust me, your sons and daughters notice.

They notice when you criticize your body.

They notice when you obsess over aging.

They notice when every photo has to be retaken 47 times.

They notice when appearances become the main thing.

Maybe some people think, “Well, that’s just the world now.”

But some of us do care.

Some of us really would like to shove that genie back into the bottle if we could.

Because honestly, I think social media and smartphones have robbed us of far more than they’ve given us.

One thing I want to do this summer is use my phone less for pictures and use this little camera I found online instead. It plugs into your phone after you take the pictures, but while you’re taking them, you can’t see them. You can’t review them. You can’t retake them over and over trying to get the perfect shot.

And honestly?

That feels a little more like life used to feel.

Because most of the pictures we see online now aren’t even moments anymore. They are productions. Carefully curated perfection after 75 tries.

Meanwhile, some of the best memories from my childhood are blurry, sun-faded, crooked little pictures where nobody looked perfect, but everybody looked happy.

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