A Divinely Moisturized Pilgrimage

(On Becoming More Myself)

A funny thing happened after my shower tonight when I caught my reflection through the glass and thought, with a strange little flicker of recognition, Oh, there you are.

It was not narcissism or some sudden declaration of my own magnificence, but a genuine humbling feeling of delight at seeing myself and realizing how much I liked the person looking back at me.

My hair was twisted up in a little satin scrunchie to keep it dry, the bathroom was still warm from the steam, and as I stood there completely naked and looking vaguely like someone’s recently divorced aunt who had just discovered Pilates and boundaries, I realized that I truly liked how I looked, and, more than that, I loved how I looked.

What surprised me most was not even the feeling itself, but how peaceful it felt to experience that kind of affection for myself without needing anyone else to confirm it.

For years, I think I assumed love would arrive from somewhere outside of me, perhaps through a relationship, a compliment, or someone deciding that I was attractive enough, desirable enough, or worthy enough to be chosen. We are sold this idea that one day another person will arrive carrying the missing piece of us, and somehow their love will finally make us feel complete.

Instead, there I was alone in my bathroom, having what can only be described as a deeply spiritual experience with my own reflection, embarking on a divinely moisturized pilgrimage toward myself that felt both slightly ridiculous and genuinely wonderful.

The truth is that the reflection looking back at me did not appear by accident, because I have spent the past few years making choices that feel increasingly aligned with who I am, whether that means growing my hair longer because I decided my forties may be my last chance at a glorious Farah Fawcett-meets-Fabio mane-hair (I know…outdated references), booking laser appointments, watching the body hair gradually disappear, seeing my face become smoother, or simply paying attention to the quiet preferences I have carried since I was young but often ignored because they did not fit neatly into other people’s expectations.

For as long as I can remember, I have never particularly enjoyed having facial hair or body hair, and even when I looked good with stubble - and let’s be honest, I absolutely did (maybe because it contoured my cheeks) - I still knew it was not really my favourite version of myself because, in some ways, it was the version that made the most sense to everyone else.

At the beginning of my forties, I finally allowed myself to ask what would happen if I did not have to keep things simply because they had been given to me, if I stopped treating my own preferences like suggestions, and if I finally trusted myself enough to listen to the answers.

Once I started doing that, I discovered that none of these changes actually felt dramatic from the inside, because each laser session was small, each inch of hair growth was gradual, and on most days the transformation was almost too incremental to notice.

Then every once in a while, usually when I am not paying attention, I catch my reflection and realize that I have quietly become someone who feels much more like me.

I did not change because I hated myself; I changed because I liked myself enough to listen, and that distinction feels incredibly important to me.

So much of self-improvement is marketed as a solution to inadequacy, with an endless catalogue of things we are supposed to fix, improve, correct, sculpt, conceal, or transform so that we might become more desirable, more acceptable, and ultimately more marketable to strangers.

What I have been doing does not feel like that at all, because it feels much more like care and tenderness, as though I am finally paying attention to someone who has been quietly trying to get my attention for decades.

Standing there tonight, I realized that the feeling washing over me was not really pride as much as gratitude for having finally given myself permission to make choices about my own body without waiting for universal approval, and for reaching a point in my life where my own opinion of myself matters more to me than it once did.

Perhaps most surprisingly, I felt grateful that I no longer needed someone else’s love to prove that I was lovable, because I could feel that love coming from somewhere much closer to home.

I still believe deeply in love, partnership, connection, intimacy, romance, and all the beautiful chaos that comes with sharing your life with another person (persons?), but those things feel different when they are not being asked to fill a hole inside you.

Love feels different when another person becomes an addition to a life rather than a repair to one, and perhaps that is why standing alone in a steamy bathroom with a satin scrunchie on my head and absolutely nobody around to witness me felt unexpectedly profound.

In that moment, I felt whole, even though I knew I was nowhere near complete and had no desire to be, because I am still becoming and hope I always will be.

There is an important difference between completeness and wholeness, because being complete suggests there is nothing left to discover, while being whole means recognizing that everything necessary is already here even as I continue to change, experiment, refine, listen, and find the courage to become more of who I have always been and desire to be.

After spending so much of life imagining that being truly seen might require another person standing on the other side of the room, there was something delicious about discovering that I could simply stand there alone, look into the mirror, recognize myself, and feel loved by the person responsible for taking care of me all along.

And after all that becoming, listening, lasering, growing, questioning, moisturizing, and wandering toward myself, I have arrived at one conclusion, at least, that feels spiritually indisputable: my mirror has excellent taste.

Written with <3 by Azure on June 24, 2026, in Toronto, Canada. Artwork by Azure, dated 2013, titled “Yellow Stripe Towel”.

(For more artworks, see http://www.itsbyazure.com or @itsbyazure on instagram)