To the Conversation in the Women's Room in Which It Is Revealed All That is Wrong With My Face

Walking into the women’s restroom, together my colleague and I chat about the meeting at 4. As I’m saying how I’m not looking forward to it, feeling the late night tug on me, she asks, “What’s wrong with your eye?”

I’ve never gotten used it, this twitch. Not actually a twitch. A spasm. I am always self-conscious of the way the left side of my face, from my eye to my lip, will pull together. It’s a nerve problem and there’s really nothing they can do. Botox, which makes me look like I’ve had a stroke, or brain surgery. This I can live with.

She asks me a lot of questions about it and then says, “Wow. That’s interesting, but that’s not what I was talking about. I meant your eye, it looked like it was turning in.”

Strabismus. Since I was two. The surgeries fixed it but years later it’s back. But not all the time. It’s been a long day. I’m not wearing my glasses. I can’t fake it.

This seems to capture all the crazy in my face. The cutie pie here is my niece.

Another woman comes out of a stall and says, looking a bit concerned, “I couldn’t help but overhear. Are you talking about your rosacea?”

No, but there’s that, too, I admit.  And this, the coldest February on record, is making it worse. My cheeks are big red beacons. I don’t bother with make up. Trying to cover it up never helps.

Most days I tell myself no one notices these things but me, that other people have little regard for the color of my cheeks or the direction my eyes are pointing. They think the spasm is just a smirk.

I feel relieved in a way, as if a secret’s been revealed. And the worry that precedes all revelations dissolves. We all leave, finish our day, knowing none of this, none of this matters.