Models: They Do Exist, and They Will Ruin Your Morning

As I walked into work this morning, I was confronted by a strange, strange sight. In my post-commute, pre-coffee stupor, I almost ran into someone, and it took me a minute to figure out what was going on. Why was I eye level with a shoulder blade? Why was I surrounded by resort wear on a 45 degree day? Why did I see miles and miles of legs? Being the shortest one in the room I’m used to, but having to drop my head all the way back to look at a dozen designer sunglass-ed faces I am not.

By Gemma

The fog lifted, and it dawned on me. Models. It was a parade of models.

In all fairness, The Today Show is filmed outside my office building on a daily basis. I have seen all manner of odd things, from circus performers to weddings to Beyonce (who, coincidentally, I also almost ran into. What is wrong with me?!). But this one, for some reason, was more jarring than most.

My height, my weight, my decidedly half-assed business-casual attire and half-heartedly blow-dried hair were all thrown into sharp relief. How did these alien people, who have done nothing but exist in the same air space as me, make me feel like a lesser person than when I entered the building?

Being a woman growing up in the Supermodel era (or just, being a woman, really) my body image and I have a complicated history. As a kid, I was average all around, but after maxing out at 5’1” in middle school, I ended up in the chubby range. Enter the teen years, and that becomes a problem. This is not to say that I was tortured or unhappy. On the contrary (and not to be snotty), I was pretty well liked and successful, but I was absolutely not one of the ‘hot girls’, and I was not pined for, nor was I written about on the boy’s bathroom walls. My crushes were always from afar, and my physical self-esteem made me assume they were always unrequited.

Leaving for college in New York, and to study acting, no less, where looks are a legitimate concern, was a wake up call, to say the least. After gaining the predictable freshman 15, I came back with discipline I didn’t know I had and dropped 25 pounds by the end of the school year. Granted, I thought about food ALL THE TIME, but that seemed a small price to pay for hotness. Sophomore year started, and my newfound confidence started to pay off. I dated, I was more outgoing, and whenever I would find myself feeling bad about my weight or how I looked, I would fall back on these things. “Well, he loves me, so I must be pretty,” I would think. The weight came and went (and came and went), and despite all my other accomplishments, my feelings about myself vacillated accordingly.

Finally, in my 20s, after years of trial and error, I have reached a point where my feelings about myself aren’t dictated by my appearance. My work is interesting, I have great friends, and I am no longer baffled and skeptical that attractive people find me attractive. This is not to say I’m satisfied with my body. Is it perfect? Oh HELL no. I’m still never going to pass 5’1” and that pretty much eliminates any chance of ever being ‘willowy’. I drink too much beer, my tummy pooches accordingly, and I’m not sure I’m ever going to be pleased with the state of my thighs, but I know my body now in a way I didn’t when I was younger, and I like to think I wear it well.

So, what is it about being confronted with these freaks of nature that knocked me so off-balance? For one thing, it followed on the heels of a comment the night before, from someone I hadn’t seen since high school. “You look greeeeeat! You’ve lost so much weight!”. Sounds like a nice thing, no? No. All of a sudden I was reminded of who I was at that point in my life, and how I imagined other people saw me.

Go to sleep with that in mind, and then run into the models and it’s a recipe for self-doubt. Until you see them in person, models can be theoretical, you can blame them on airbrushing. Hate to say it, ladies, but they’re real, they are 6 feet tall, look awesome in shorts, and their hair does shine like the Chrysler building.

After I skirted the aliens and made it upstairs, I sat at my computer and moped. I felt myself slipping back into that self-defeating mindset. “Why would someone love me when there are people like that in the world? It’s not fair! I bet they eat everything they want and never work out and I hate them!” Well, for one thing, that’s not true, and also, what the hell do I care? I used to deal with these insecurities by some bizarre forms of validation. Going shopping just so I could see that I still wore the same small size clothes. Calling my mom and crying. Flirting with people I wasn’t attracted to, to make sure I still got a response.

This morning, as I lamented the state of my mundane, non-modeling life, a different balm presented itself. I looked out at my kick-ass view from my pretty awesome job, made plans to see great shows with my great friends, chatted with my Mom about her upcoming trip to visit, and realized how great I have it. I can now take stock of myself as a whole person, not just the physical manifestation.

I’ve been paying my own bills for a while now, but this finally makes me feel like an adult.