Edition #40: When Happiness is Pageantry

Plus, the photographer peeking at your phone screen, what you lose when you gain a spouse, and Florence Pugh eating food

A Note From the Editor

Years ago (seven and a half years, to be exact), I had a brief stint as a pageant girl. It was my junior year of college, a year I’d always planned to spend flouncing around Florence doing a semester abroad, but the previous summer spent at an unpaid internship in New York had reduced my meager savings account to pennies, making Italy but a distant dream. If I couldn’t spend a semester in another country, I could at least give myself a task to focus on. My school’s scholarship pageant, Miss USF, included a talent portion, meaning I’d be able to dance again, and if nothing else I figured it would serve as a good excuse to get into really good shape. Thus, my stint as a pageant girl begun.

I took my preparations seriously, snubbing all alcohol consumption and living off of an unsustainably low-calorie diet of green juices and egg white omelets, treating myself to the occasional Chobani yogurt for dinner. Sometimes I was too fatigued to work out, and other times I would cry over my bowl of broccoli as I watched my friends contour their faces and guzzle bubblegum flavored vodka as they got ready for a night out. Though the preparation was grueling, it was the exact sort of thing I lived for: a clear cut task to focus all of my energy on, one that had the potential to make me feel legitimized if it ended my way — and it did. I won in every single category, a feat that my family and sorority sisters and former boss were all proud of. Winning meant a small scholarship for me, and also, a continued stretch in the pageant world. I would represent my school at Miss Florida that summer, a qualifier for Miss America.

I can’t say exactly when it started, but shortly after winning Miss USF that spring, my world began to darken. It was subtle at first, quiet. I was a little more tired than usual and fell asleep often, once while driving to work in the middle of the day. I had an internship with a company I didn’t care about and a boyfriend whom I didn’t particularly adore, so I got rid of both of those things, assuming they were to blame for the new weight that was pressing down on me. But still I felt heavy, like there was a block of lead planted somewhere deep in my gut.

As summer arrived I had only two responsibilities, prepare for Miss Florida and work at my nannying job. Both tasks felt impossibly difficult. I was living in the mostly empty sorority house on a mostly empty campus, and with everyone assuming I was dutifully preparing for Miss Florida, I was slowly, steadily departing from my body. I retreated into myself, unable to muster the energy required to interact with others. During those rare moments when I found myself stuck in a conversation, my tongue would go limp, forgetting how to participate in the exchange of niceties. There was always a second narrative happening in my head during these interactions: why is this person so happy? Don’t they know this is all pointless? And, I want to go to bed. To test whether I was still human, I thought of all the things I’d once loved and attempted to muster up a positive feeling at the memory of them; my family, my nieces and nephews, my childhood dog. Nothing did the trick, and so I guessed that love had departed from my being, that I would never be capable of it again.

I couldn’t eat, as my appetite had disappeared to whatever corner of the world my soul was hiding, and I grew thin — a fact I might have been proud of, given that I needed to display my bikini-d my body as a pageant requirement, but that I hardly noticed. I stopped getting my period, I hardly noticed. I had an epiphany documented in one of my journals from back then: that I was nothing special, that every accomplishment I’d achieved to date, including winning the pageant, was merely fuel for my delusions of grandeur. In reality, I was a nobody. I could feel it in my bones. When I thought of all the life that spanned out in front of me, assuming I made it somewhere close to old age, it only felt very, very long.

I didn’t know I was depressed. To everyone around me, I was still the girl in this video. People would constantly ask me how my Miss Florida preparation was going and was I excited? I had no adequate reply, and as the date of the event closed in and I packed garments bags filled with evening wear and costumes, heavy makeup and glitzy earrings, I kept waiting to snap out of it. Excitement would show up eventually, I assumed, and like an old skin, I’d slip it on and be myself. When my family realized that they wouldn’t be able to attend the pageant due to a scheduling mishap and a previously booked vacation, I wasn’t mad, I was relieved. I would go through this quietly and mostly alone.

If there are two things I can tell you about pageants now, it is that 1. pageant girls are unequivocally impressive, and 2. pageants are no place for a depressed person. During “Miss Florida week,” the days leading up to our big performance, they took away our cell phones and bunked us with another contestant by way of forced bonding. We spent our days at long rehearsals and public appearances, all dolled up in sashes and crowns and false eyelashes. Everywhere I looked, I found evidence of my previous revelation, that I was nothing special. These women were the real deal, they had binders of laminated pages documenting years of community service and signed letters from US Presidents thanking them for their societal contributions. They had beautiful teeth, big hair, and thin, chiseled bodies. They had all the right clothes and tragic stories that morphed into 503c charitable organizations. Every night after our performances, they had equally beautiful families, boyfriends, and girlfriends flocking them, gushing their praise with a shiny sort of pride. I watched and tried to imagine myself in their shoes, like the way I felt after winning Miss USF, but the joy I was able to access back then was a recollection from another lifetime. My favorite part of every day of Miss Florida was the end of it, sliding between my tightly tucked hotel sheets and closing my eyes.

The craziest part about the experience was that I have more or less no photos from Miss Florida, an event that several of the girls I competed with still reference in glossy-eyed #tbt posts all these years later, and that hardly anyone knew what mental state I was in at that time. Not my employer, not my closest friends, not my cheery roommate during Miss Florida week. It is a marvel that I was able to keep my condition concealed at all, as I would have sworn the globby grey matter that is depression was oozing from my pores, a scarlet letter marking me as Broken.

Someone shared this photo on Instagram last week, and I was immediately brought back to myself during that bleak time in my life. I thought of the tearful confession I’d made to one of the other contestants in a hallway during Miss Florida week, saying I had no idea what I would do with my life after college graduation. I thought of how she hugged me tightly and told me it would all be OK, and how for a brief moment, I could breathe. I hope we can keep this simple truth in mind: that it’s impossible to know what the person next to you is going through or how they are feeling, especially now. Kindness, then, is the only way.

Cheers, my dears. Might I ask, how are you feeling? Don’t continue reading until you’ve answered, whether to yourself for in the comments section. I think it’s a question worth asking, one we should ask each other and ourselves with more frequency and compassion.

If you’re experiencing any form of depression, don’t be ashamed — get help. I saw a therapist for the entirety of that summer, and eventually, got on a mild antidepressant for a period of time. And I got better. There is no shame in taking care of yourself.

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Three Pieces of Content Worth Consuming

1. The Photographer Peeking at Your Screen. One of my favorite past times is getting a little, bite-sized peek into people’s personal lives, making inferences about who they are and where they're going. Maybe it's the curious writer in me or maybe I am just nosy, but I constantly find myself peering into people’s grocery carts, into their open windows, into their bathroom cabinets (just kidding?). This project was made for people with my kind of voyeuristic tendencies, a genius photographer who takes photos of impossibly intimate moments displayed for the world to see in the form of a text message. The juiciness captured in these images is ripe and alive. You can purchase the book of photos here.

2. What You Lose When You Gain a Spouse. Marriage is something most of us aspire to, or participate in, without giving much second thought. We’ve been taught that marriage is a necessary social contract, a precursor for a fulfilled life — but what do you lose on the back end, aside from a little bit of freedom? An interesting case for what happens to our social circles and interpersonal relationships when we are married (which felt like a sequel to the sentiment expressed in this dynamic piece). Married and unmarried friends, I would love to hear your perspective on this.

3. How Does a Woman Become Sexy? This essay is pure gold. First, consider the question: when did you begin to consider yourself sexy, and what happened? This is what one writer asked on Twitter, and the responses she got are uplifting, funny, empowering, and necessary. I love the thoughtful, breezy manner of this one, and now I’m curious to know, when did you begin to consider yourself sexy? One of my favorite lines from the essay:

   However, an overwhelming majority of these women got to sexy on their own and in their own time, which is a revolutionary act. The societal pressures women face to be everything for a man and nothing for themselves takes a lifetime of unlearning.

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Perhaps You Should…
Try the New York Times Mini Crossword Puzzle

Times are bleak, some days are good and others are not so good. As such, I’ve been trying to add quick hits of joy into my daily routine, something small to look forward to. I’ve never been a crossword puzzle person, but the New York Times mini crossword is short, unintimidating, and rather pleasing. Try it with your morning coffee (guaranteed to make you feel like your grandfather), and then tell me how long today’s puzzle took for you to solve (1:50 for me).

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**Bonus Content** (Florence Pugh Eating Food)

I deeply detest the sound of chewing, so I am as baffled as you are that I discovered nothing but utter delight from watching this video of Florence Pugh trying a bunch of different traditional British foods. Is it her outfit? Her makeup? Her perfect manners, or the way she takes a delicate bite of every single dish? I don’t know, but something about this video hypnotized me in the best way possible.

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A Quote From A Book You Should Read:

“It’s not that I want exactly this, to have a husband or home security system that, for the length of our marriage, never goes off. It’s that there are gray, anonymous hours like this. Hours when I am desperate, when I am ravenous, when I know how a star becomes a void.”

-Luster by Raven Lelani

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This newsletter is best served with a side of conversation, so drop your opinions, reflections, and thoughts in the comments below and let’s get to talking.

Or, share the most thought-provoking piece from today’s edition with someone you love, then call them up to discuss, debate, and percolate. As a wise woman once said, “Great minds discuss ideas.”