This series will contain posts styled as a memoir with memories that I feel like sharing. I first wrote these articles in 2017 when I was suffering from burnout. I may post one or two a month. I hope you enjoy these intimate glimpses into the life of...
Episode 1
A Vanity of My Own
My oldest sister had a glass and gold vanity in her room. It had two shelves, so you could put products on the top and smaller items on the bottom. An oval mirror stood in the middle that moved back and forth if you needed it to, but it didn’t turn all the way around. I tried.
I loved that vanity. It was classy and cool with all that glass. And it meant my sister was mature…a young woman. She clustered lotions and hair products in one corner. In another corner, she had perfume bottles. Around the oval mirror she had attached her claw hair clips. And her makeup was arranged just so on the bottom level. I enjoyed looking at it and sitting in the tiny chair, pretending I was older and beautiful. Even rich. I mean…it was gold.
At this time, I did wear makeup. I was probably ten or so. I liked to put on purple or blue eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick. In my 5th grade school picture, you can just make out a bit of blue eyeshadow on my lids and clear gloss on my lips. Being allowed to wear makeup meant I was mature, too…a young lady. I adored the feeling, and I was the only one in my class who wore makeup, so I felt privileged in a way.
But I did not have a vanity.
One day, I was with my dad in his truck. We were close to home when we passed a house with a piece of furniture on the side of the road. Glass gleamed in the sunlight. Gold sparkled. My eyes widened. The vanity! No, not any vanity. It was an exact replica of my sister’s vanity. I asked my dad to turn around and get it for me. I so badly wanted it because it was just like my sister’s. He had no problem at all fetching it for me, and I was filled with delight.
When we got home, he brought it into the room I shared with my mom and other sister. I cleaned it with Windex, paper towels, and love. It was perfect! No scratches. No rust. I went back and forth from the master bathroom I shared with my mom and sisters and took items from the counter to put on my vanity, like hairbrushes, hair spray, my makeup, which included little containers of body glittery that I’d put on my eyelids and cheeks. As I did this, I’d snuck into my sister’s room (she wasn’t home) and studied her vanity. I went back to mine, shifted things around, and hunted for specific items from the bathroom that I could add to my vanity to make it match my sister’s. I was proud of my creation, prouder more that I was a little bit closer to my oldest sister, who never really wanted to hang out with me, but maybe this would help that…show that I’m not as little as she thought.
Later, my other sister noticed the resemblance of my vanity and our sister’s vanity. More, she noted how I had set mine up in the exact same fashion. “I’m going to tell her you’ve copied her,” she said, and hurried off to tattle to our big sister.
I sat in the small chair and stared at my vanity, tears forming in my eyes. I felt as though I had done something really bad. Awful, in fact.
Both of my sisters came in then, and my oldest sister was livid that I not only had the same vanity but completely copied her. I don’t remember what was said, but I do recall that the claw hair clips were pointed out, because I had put mine along the mirror, too. I even had the same number there: three. One on top and one on each side.
By the time they left, I was crying.
My sister couldn’t see that I copied her because I looked up to her. She was huge in my eyes. In a good way. She was older, cooler, and I had wanted to be just like her. Instead of being flattered that I would mimic her with something as silly as a vanity’s spread, she was mad.
And I became mad, too. I picked up my hairbrush, laid out like hers, and threw it on the ground.
Little sisters look up to their big sisters. This is what I did. Perhaps it would’ve been fine if my other sister copied her, since the two of them were closer. Or perhaps not? Maybe she had wanted to be an individual. But what she couldn’t see is that she was inspiring me. I craved what she had, not because I wanted to take anything from her, but because I wanted to be like her.
I ended up not using that vanity. I looked at it with shame, made to believe I did something so unforgivable, and we ended up getting rid of it. I never had a vanity since, but I still think about that glass and gold vanity. If I ever find one like it, I’ll buy it and respect it in a way I wasn’t able to as a child.
