I was the dark one with the birthmark.
What’s that red stuff?
Did you spill something on yourself?"
“Tell them it’s a birthmark and that you were born with it.
But even at 5, I was all about self-preservation.
By fifth grade, though, anger roiled within me.
When the boy who sat behind me leaned in close and whispered, “Hey, Red Beard!
I could barely suppress my rage.
But I felt I had no right to defend myself.
After all, I was stained.
In fat, round print I wrote, “I sure hope you’re not as lonely.
Remember how you couldn’t wear makeup?
Well, next year, it’s possible for you to.
I hope you’re better-looking now.”
The transformation was shocking.
For years I’d prayed to God to take away my birthmark, but this secondhand solutionmakeupwas a miracle.
To my surprise, with this new face, in my new school, I was considered beautiful.
I filed away every compliment.
Before, I’d wanted to disappear.
Now I was eager to be seen.
(It was 1988.
No one questioned me.)
Instead of deliverance, I got a scar on my chin.
I decided to stick to makeup.
When I covered up my birthmark, I masked my emotions as well.
After years of loneliness and teasing, I couldn’t risk being vulnerable.
So I became the master of my own blissful masquerade.
It’s not that I wanted to be a model; I wanted to be consideredableto be one.
Then I went to college, the first in my family to go.
Wolf’s ideas unleashed the anger and sadness I’d suppressed.
Yet I couldn’t contemplate being invisible again or, worse, ugly.
So I kept painting myself in, dreading every hug and kiss.
I hated bright sun and wind, especially when it blew my hair away from my neck.
All my actions were calculated to prevent scrutiny, to keep from being found out.
My first thought was, Oh, God, I need to be honest about my face.
Later that night, back at my place, I interrupted a long kiss.
“There’s something I need to tell you.
“I tweeze my eyebrows,” he confessed.
After that, we got serious.
I raised my hands up as if to say, “Well, here I am.”
He gave me a kiss and smiled.
Andrew accepted me, but there were reminders of my freakishness.
After he and I moved in together, I stayed home one day to let in the cable guy.
“What’s wrong with your face?”
I gave my pat answer.
“It’s a birthmark.
I was born with it.”
“Do you normally wear makeup to cover it?”
But not always, because it’s important for ignorant people like you to see it!”
Just like that, the hidden, stained part of me was finding her voice.
So my clothes had to be equally done up, preferably ’70s disco dresses with strappy sandals.
That perfectly coiffed girl was Shmance.
My other half was a bare-faced nameless girl who preferred overalls to dresses.
I loved her for that.
Shmance, on the other hand, exhausted me.
She drank a lot and was always saucy and social, but she rarely connected to anyone deeply.
It was time to put her to rest.
The message was clear: My vanity was destructive.
I started seeing a therapist, who told me, “You have a presence beyond your face.”
I needed to see the sum of me instead of the parts.
The first morning I ventured out with bare skin, I cried all the way to the subway.
On the train, I noticed two teenagers giggling, whispering and looking at me.
I gave them a fierce stare, but they moved closer to each other, still whispering.
When I got to work, I hid in my office until someone finally knocked.
With each interaction, I felt a bit more confident.
Now, three years later, my old compacts sit in a dusty pile in the closet.
My makeup bag holds little more than mascara, a brow pencil and lip balm.
Andrew and I are married, and we have a 2-year-old daughter.
I don’t want her to ever see me ashamed.
I’d like her to learn that being real is never wrong.
And even though people still stare at me from time to time, these days I hardly notice them.
I no longer think of my face as stained.
I prefer to think of it as…memorable.
Photo Credit: Alexandra Rowley
