I Don't Feel Bad About My Neck

On the drive home from the Isle of Skye last March, I was in the back seat. My friend Chlöe Frost-Smith was behind the wheel and Florence Reeves-White in shotgun.

Forehead pressed against the window, I savored the cool glass on my flushed skin, no doubt a result of the large Sunday Roast we had just scarfed down at Kinloch Lodge and the Fair Isle sweater vest I donned with a red cashmere scarf tied tightly around my neck. This, paired with baggy thick corduroy trousers and mud-sodden Blundstones, was my go-to outfit in Scotland. I didn’t ever really think about how I looked.

My undyed hair had grown unceremoniously long, and I had come to embrace its natural wave. On its best days, my long locks looked like a forest waif, and at its worst, some form of forest witch. This day was closer to the latter.

We were making our way back to Edinburgh on the last leg of our epic Isle of Skye boondoggle, important both because I was writing it up for Vogue and because it was my last big trip before moving out of Scotland and back to New York City.

Our days traversing Scotland’s northwestern coast had started with Florence and I making our way to Braemar, where she was doing a hotel review of the Fife Arms and I was a very lucky plus one. Then we took a taxi and a long bus ride, to meet Chloe, who was joining for the Isle of Skye leg.

This trip was mystical and magical in all the right ways. We spent our time dipping our faces (and then our whole bodies) into the fairy pools and tasting every espresso at the new Birch coffee roastery. In Portree, we watched the honey-hued golden hour over the harbor and then had an unbelievable meal at the former fisherman’s cottage turned fine dining restaurant, Scorrybreac. We ate too many great meals to list. (You can see the whole itinerary here in great detail.) Intermixed with all the eating, we went on long walks, watched the sheep, swapped books, and asked the big questions of our lives. Is there anything better than traveling with creative friends?

That’s all to say, my soul was filled to the brim. Fresh off a cold plunge in the fairy pools, I was beaming out the inner radiance that comes from spending large amounts of time outdoors, nourishing your body with the most local of foods, and fueling your soul with stimulating chat.

And it was with that inner radiance beaming outward that I blurted out the thing that had been long on my mind for the first three hours of the drive.

“I’m afraid I’m going to get plastic surgery,” I said to the car that had been peacefully taking in the scenery and settled in comfortable silence.

Immediately, Chloe and Florence burst out laughing.

“Whaaaat?” said Chloe. “Where is this coming from?” added Florence, as nothing about our surroundings screamed medspa. I mean, imagine explaining a lip flip to the medieval castle just outside our window.

The thing was, I was scared.

I was honestly terrified to move back to New York City.

I didn’t want to lose the person I had become over the past five years. I really liked that person.

I am someone who is deeply affected by their environment. It just so happened that living in Spain, and Scotland, changed me for the better.

In Spain, I became immersed in the world of visual beauty, surrounded by some of the most beautiful architecture and art in the world. In Scotland, I was in community with deeply mystical creatives who loved history and craft. I became my fullest expression of myself in these environments. I felt expansive and sure of who I was. The superficial things that had felt so important and essential living in New York City were so irrelevant in these worlds.

Like how I looked.

When I lived in New York City before, I was absolutely obsessed with how I looked.

I moved out of New York City at twenty-five.

I had bleach-blonde hair and used way too much self-tanner. I had spent so many years making myself small—thin and palatable and likeable. I was a people pleaser and didn’t know how to say no. I did things I didn’t want to do, craving male attention and acceptance. I wanted to be beautiful. I wanted to be wanted.

And I didn’t want to be like that ever again.

All of this came rushing back to me as we drove home from the Isle of Skye, the reality setting in that in a matter of weeks I would be moving back to New York City.

I knew how much environments affected me. I was scared of what a place could do to me.

Was I strong enough? Was I sure enough? Could I hold my form?

My biggest fear was that I would come to New York City and slowly, subtly, I’d start to conform. Maybe first I’d start to dye my hair again. Or spend a lot of money on clothes, wearing things to fit in.

And then maybe I’d get some Botox. And then a tweak here and a tweak there. And then I would be completely off the wagon, obsessing over how I looked again. I would lose myself, the person I had fought so hard to return to.

It sounds silly, I know.

I know people who have always known who they are. And I admire them greatly for how they can hold their shape.

But I am always changing and incorporating information and calibrating. This means I’m highly adaptable, but it also means I can overcompensate. I can lose myself in a place.

Knowing this, I have worked very hard over the years to dig deep on who I really am. What are my values? What do I love? What brings me to life? I needed to build a strong foundation of self-acceptance.

And all the work I’ve done in these past five years has been to do just that. Cut out the noise, strip back all the things that block my inner light from reaching the outer world.

And that work has made me wholly accept who I am.

Yes, I know my teeth have shifted from not wearing a retainer and yes, I’m fully aware that my nose is broken on one side because of falling out of a handstand at yoga when I was 21, and yes, my chin is crooked, but I like the way I look.

I feel like it fits me. The person I want to be. Who I always wanted to be. A writer who has lived all around the world, who writes great, weird stories and loves to bring people together.

I feel like I look the way I’m supposed to. And I like it.

I can wholeheartedly say it with my chest. I like the way I look!

More than that, I think I am beautiful!

I cringe even writing that down.

I remember the first time I ever said that outloud, over dinner in Ireland to two new friends. One was asking me how I had gotten over my eating disorder and if I ever felt the old feelings coming back. And my answer was honestly no.

“I actually love the way I look,” I said, no louder than a whisper. “I feel really beautiful.”

It felt crazy to say it. Because for so many years, I had bonded with new female friends by putting myself down and we’d all swap notes about what we didn’t like about ourselves.

Today, I won’t let myself engage in that sort of conversation. I’m not going to talk badly about the way I look. I like the way I look. I like what it says about the life I’ve led.

Maybe that self-acceptance naturally comes from getting older.

I’m sure it also helps that I have a partner who wholly loves and adores me, regardless of what I wear or weigh.

I think it also comes from surrounding myself with people who have similar values. And it definitely helps to have creative friends who take amazing photos of you so you can catch a glimpse of how they see you.

It has also been helpful to see examples of how I want to live and age. One of the best parts of living in Edinburgh was that it was so intergenerational and felt much less superficial. I met so many people who were expanders who showed me what I would like to become when I’m older.

In our neighborhood tennis club and through my travels in Scotland, I met older women who lived fascinating lives, who were writers and hoteliers and designers and artists.

They weren’t afraid of their age, of their bodies and faces showing the years they had lived. If they wore makeup or had touched their face, I didn’t notice or care. It was about how they carried themselves that was so beautifull.

They were wholly sure of who they were.

I wanted to be like them.

I also started to seek out brands that are using mature models in their editorial. Marfa Stance, ROWSE, Skall Studio, KESTIN, NOAH, Ffern, among so many others. Seeing these beautiful images moves me and inspires me.

I’m glad that brands are casting older models in their campaigns. I think the most important thing you can do as a brand is to help women accept themselves.

Accept time.

Accept that aging is beautiful.

Because so many brands profit from making us think the exact opposite.

To be clear, I’m not anti-plastic surgery or anti-makeup or anti-anything for other people. People should do whatever they want with their bodies and feel wholly empowered to do so.

But for me, the thing I needed to do more than anything was just accept myself.

And I’m not going to let any marketing or messaging get under my skin and make me believe that there’s something I could buy, to change how I look, that could give me the life I want.

The happiest I’ve ever been was when I was thinking about how I looked the least.

That’s all to say, it’s been one year since I moved to New York City.

My fears were unfounded.

I still feel sparkly and shiny. I don’t feel bad about my neck. I don’t wear my Fair Isle vest anymore, but I’ve held my form. I have taken up space. I have not tweaked and touched my face and I whisper to you, I don’t think I ever will.

I don’t want to live in a world where I feel like I have to.

If I start to feel that slippery, achy, insecure feeling that wants me to obsess about how I look, that’s a signal. It has nothing to do with how I look and everything to do with how I feel.

That icky feeling is a push for me to recalibrate.

Go ground into the world around me and seek out beauty in the natural world, anchor into my foundation, and to look at my expanders: the wise, wild, creative women who are beacons ahead of me.

When I channel all my energy into making my life beautiful, I feel beautiful.

It doesn’t matter how I look.

It matters how it feels.

I know that now.