First grade was the first time I had a fight with my mother. There was lots of yelling and screaming and crying, as is typically seen in mother daughter arguments, but more unusually, there was band-aid and cream throwing and terrifying threats of skin cancer. 

That fight was a lot of things-- the first of many similar fights, the first time I started to fear my future, and the first time I felt myself grappling with self consciousness. 

But I think most importantly, it ignited an era of desperate perfectionism, constant jealousy and-- 

And it was all because of my cheeks.

***

The summer after kindergarten, I started learning violin. During violin lessons, I often found myself extremely anxious to please my parents and teacher. And that’s when it all started developing, my perpetual, thoughtless picking of my cheeks. 

By the time I was in first grade, the magnitude of this habit had risen to the point where I had developed splotches of exposed skin and scar tissue on both cheeks. By the time second grade rolled around, the scars only got deeper, more bloody, more infected. By third grade, I had to lather thick layers of antihistamine over my cheeks every morning before school. By fourth grade, I had to wear band aids and winter gloves everywhere I went. At that point, it wasn't a bad habit or a coping mechanism I used to calm myself down but rather a pleasure I simply couldn’t live without. 

An addiction.

***

It was always uncomfortable, perhaps even enraging, whenever my friends would complain about how ugly their faces were. I would think about my own face and how, according to their definition of beauty, it was truly ugly. I didn’t have cheeks pretty and prim like them-- and cheeks were supposed to be a guaranteed perfection! 

If their faces were ugly, what did they think of mine dotted with scars? 

***

By the time seventh grade rolled around, my friends’ parents started asking me what happened to my face whenever the picking would get really bad. So to avoid these questions that brought me back to the reality I chose to forget, I actively hid my face away. I brushed my hair over my cheeks, only leaving the central third of my face for people to see and I avoided putting my hair in a ponytail at all costs, even after a hockey game when my hair was matted with sweat or at soccer tournaments when the hair swept into my eyes.

I was embarrassed that I couldn’t publicly display my cheeks like everyone else and by going through this much trouble, a sense of difference took over my waking thoughts. I started staring at (more like admiring) other people’s seemingly clear, flawless cheeks and every time, I would sigh because my yearning for spotless cheeks, a privilege they took advantage of everyday, was unimaginable, incomprehensible to them.

***

I felt relieved when I first learned that we had to wear masks to protect ourselves from Covid-19. Maybe relief isn’t enough to even describe it-- I was ecstatic, grateful that I and everyone around me would have to hide our cheeks under a piece of cloth. 

I would be the same as them, for all a stranger could know, I could have plump, rosy cheeks like anyone else and they wouldn’t think anymore of it. 

***

Cheeks are unthought of by the masses. On the rare occasion that I hear someone talk about cheeks, it is understandably not with praise but rather, disdain. They pout about the baby fat in their cheeks, wishing that they could have less of it, or scorn their low cheekbones that make their face look unproportional or snap about their dimples that are too deep rather than thinking about how that genuine crinkle in their cheek when they smile can mean the world to someone or how that familiar red from under the surface of a cheek could be the start of their forever or how the sagginess of their cheeks indicates their need of help.

I also don’t believe a lot of people accept that bad things will happen to their cheeks as they age. They always think they are the exceptions but without fail, the inevitable age dots, thinner, more tallow skin, loss of definition, wider pores and wrinkles manage to take a toll on their cheeks. 

***

In a way, there is a good side to my otherwise negative experience. I have truly accepted my imperfect cheeks earlier than most of my generation and have braced myself for all of the things that could add to the browning scars. I no longer look at my cheeks with resentment and guilt but rather, with gratefulness.