I Wonder What I Look Like

A Conversation From Present To Past

By Nikitha Mannem

One of my best friends called me the other night. Just out of the blue because we hadn’t spoken in a while. Somewhere along the string of disbelief that we’re growing up and apart from each other, we landed on the topic of our faces. I distinctly remember the absolute shock I felt when he sent me a picture of himself from sophomore year of high school versus a selfie he had taken just then. He began to pick at his features and claim that he looked no different now compared to the older photo he sent me. I wasn’t able to coherently think before I replied, “I think you just look more mature. You’ve grown into your face. You look good, older.”

He fell silent for a moment. “Do I?”

“Yeah. You do.”

He paused again to look at the photos I’d sent of my face: one from sophomore year and one I had taken just a few minutes before. “You look kind of the same, just more at peace.”

I could hear the both of us smiling through the static of silence over the phone as perfectly as I could picture both of our smiling faces right next to each other.

We’d both hated our faces for a long time, probably by fault of social media. I’d always been pressured into making myself appear thinner, prettier, hotter, and whiter. He’d been pulled into the draining process of picking apart his teeth, acne, and hair.

“I miss you.”

“I do too, goodnight.”

After our conversation ended, I laid there and thought about what we talked about: how we’ve grown into the people we’ve always wanted to be, and how we’ve got the rest of our lives to change: our faces tell our unapologetic stories of maturing and growing up.