I Would Finally Be Beautiful
I looked into the mirror one last time. Carefully. I ran my eyes over my face searching for blemishes. I spotted an unblended portion of skin near my neckline, and painstakingly used some powder and foundation to cover it. My roommate complained, "That has to be the hundredth time you've adjusted your make-up. Can't you go natural for once?"
I sighed internally and gave her my "what do you think" look, the one I reserved for people who asked ridiculous questions.
People just didn't get it. Beauty didn't come to me naturally as it did others. I had to work hard for it. Maybe if I was fairer, I would look prettier. I was not only dark, but my square, sooty face was riddled with stubborn, unsightly pimples. My nose — which was rather bulbous — was enormous. When I was younger, my father would joke about how my big nose meant I could sniff food from a mile away. He would always follow that with how he found people with big noses very attractive. My mum, exasperated, would snidely remark that even with my gigantic nose, I couldn't smell my father's deception. According to her, no one found big noses attractive, especially on a girl. In a bid to prove her wrong, I walked up to my crush in school and announced that I was in love with him. My crush, the most popular boy in my entire grade, turned to his friends and said that he couldn't date me because my big nose would probably bump his when we kissed.
With my nose running and tears streaming down my face, I fleed the school building and ran to my father's office, ignoring calls from teachers and the school gateman.
The next day, when I got to school, my nose was smaller. I had stayed up all night watching YouTube videos on how to make my nose look smaller and thinner. I had gotten all the necessary "equipment" for my "surgery" from the Aunty Taiye, the make-up artist who lived next door. By the time I left for school, I had efficiently used concealer, beauty blender, and highlighter to reduce the size of my nose. I was a new person.
My father, ever the comedian, jokes that since that day, he has never seen me without make-up on. He didn't get it too. My make-up had become, not even a second, but a first skin to me. I was naked without it. Whenever I heard people make cliché comments about natural beauty and how it's the inside that counts, I shook my head at their ignorance. If it was truly the inside that counted, why did they care about the make-up I put on the outside? Of course, whenever I made this argument, I didn't get any response apart from the occasional "there's no point arguing with you. You're a lost cause." But I didn't care what anyone thought about me. What mattered was what I thought about myself. What mattered was that when I looked into the mirror, I saw a beautiful woman with a thin nose and a face completely devoid of pimples. I had attended many seminars and heard the age-old "love yourself" speech. Yet when I loved myself — the improved version anyway — people appeared to have a problem.
I smiled to myself as I remembered that I wouldn't have to keep using make-up for long anyway. I had been saving my pocket money for three years, and in a few weeks, I'd be turning 18 and wouldn't need my parents' permission to get a facelift anymore. I had pestered my father non-stop for a month and just when he was starting to cave, my mother disparagingly commented that it wouldn't make a difference anyway, "if I didn't love myself no one else would love me," and then told my father that she had to talk to him in private. I have no idea what she said to him, but when he came back, he stated that under no circumstances would he give his consent or money for me to get surgery on my face. It didn't matter anymore. I had already saved the 752,000 naira which would pay for the surgery to make my nose thinner and remove all pimples or freckles from my face.
I smiled at the thought and turned to my roommate informing her that I was all done. She sighed in relief and sarcastically commented that she thought I'd spend a thousand years in front of the mirror. I just grinned widely and told her not to worry. In a few weeks, I wouldn't need to even use make-up at all. I would finally be beautiful.