Watching your reflection change in the mirror—whether that’s because you’re aging, or because you’re sick, stressed, sad, or all of the above—can be really, really hard. And right now, there’s no shortage of “tweakments” (Botox, fillers, lasers, etc.) that promise to prevent or undo some of these changes, or even redesign the features you were born with. No one is saying you should get a whole new head, exactly; the conversation is generally framed around looking more like your “true self.”
But what does your “true self” actually look like, if not the person you are right now? That’s the big, existential question Allie Volpe set out to answer in a lovely new essay for Vox. “We’re both sculptor and marble, chiseling our images into a version that most aligns with who we are — or who we think we are,” Allie writes. “But our lives, and our bodies, are constantly changing. We age, we get pregnant, we break bones, we get sick, we grieve, throwing off the balance between how we see ourselves and how the world perceives us. There exists a fear of not recognizing ourselves as we move through these transitions. When bodies and appearances are malleable, what does that mean for the person underneath?”
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—Rachel Wilkerson Miller, senior editor
