I Stopped Playing the Perfect Girl

Hi, I am Anastasia, I am 22, and I am from Sochi. I am a former gymnast, I still train a lot, and I love the sea, traveling, beautiful photographs, and people with a good sense of humor. Usually I get along easily with new people, and in general I love those moments when a day unexpectedly spins out of control.

STORY BODY

The book snapped shut прямо in my face.

I had only just managed to arrange myself beautifully on the towel, stretch out my legs, place my coffee beside me, and open the novel exactly the way I had imagined that morning.

And then the wind decided it had its own director’s cut of my day.

I had come to the beach alone and had given myself an absolutely pointless mission in advance: to spend a few hours as if someone were filming me for a very aesthetic European movie.

Read beautifully.

Walk to the water beautifully.

Drink coffee beautifully.

Exist beautifully.

After my previous story with my boyfriend, I already felt much calmer being without clothes among other adults. Back then, we had come “just to look,” and in the end we both stayed a long time and left with completely different feelings about ourselves and our own bodies.

So today I decided: no panic.

Only aesthetics.

I opened the book again.

The wind flipped twenty pages at once.

I turned the page back.

The wind turned its twenty pages back.

“All right,” I said out loud. “It begins.”

A woman not far from me looked at me and smiled.

I pretended I had not just been arguing with the weather.

The next item on the program: coffee.

I sat sideways, took the cup between two fingers, and almost managed to feel like the heroine of Madame Bovary, if Emma Bovary bought cappuccino in a plastic cup.

First sip.

A grain of sand on my lips.

Second sip.

Another grain of sand.

By the third, I realized that the wind was very systematically adding beach to my drink.

I set the coffee down.

Fine.

On to the water.

This was where I had been sure of success.

I stood up, straightened my shoulders, and walked slowly, trying not to look at my feet.

After five steps I stepped on a hot stone.

After seven, on a cold one.

By ten, I was walking like a person being chased by invisible LEGO.

But that was not even the most unpleasant part.

I was still trying to look beautiful.

And that was exactly why every little inconvenience felt twice as strong.

I kept thinking:

“Are my hands normal?”

“Is my back straight?”

“Do I look confident right now?”

“Why am I even thinking about this?”

At the water, I stopped.

The sea looked beautiful.

The water was freezing.

I stepped in ankle-deep.

Froze.

A man nearby walked farther in quite calmly.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

“Cold,” he said.

“Very useful information.”

He laughed.

So did I.

And for some reason, that made everything easier.

I went in a little farther.

The cold ran over my legs, my stomach, my shoulders.

I inhaled sharply.

And again the thought appeared in my head:

“Beautifully.”

Good Lord.

I was even trying to freeze beautifully.

I dove under.

Came back out.

My wet hair instantly stuck to my face.

The wind picked up.

And as I walked back, it became obvious that my image as a cinematic heroine had ended around minute three.

Meanwhile, the towel had rolled itself into a tube.

The book was lying open face down.

The coffee was standing at an angle.

And somehow my bag had become half buried in sand.

I looked at all of it and suddenly started laughing.

Really laughing.

Not a “cute smile for the camera.”

But bending over and covering my face with my hands.

The woman nearby asked:

“Everything all right?”

“No. And finally, it is perfect.”

She did not understand anything.

I did not immediately understand either.

I just stopped correcting the day.

I did not straighten the towel.

I sat directly on the sand.

I did not smooth my hair.

I did not try to find a flattering angle.

I did not check my stomach.

I did not think about who might be looking.

The wind was wind.

Sand was sand.

Cold water was cold water.

And suddenly I felt very good.

I went swimming again.

This time quickly.

Without a beautiful walk.

I ran and entered the water so fast that spray flew in every direction.

Someone nearby laughed.

I turned around.

“Cold?” asked the same man.

“Terrible.”

“Then why?”

“Too late to retreat.”

A few minutes later, the three of us were talking — him, the woman from the neighboring towel, and me.

Completely by accident.

No staging.

No attempt to “look interesting.”

And perhaps for the first time that day, I really did look interesting precisely because I had stopped thinking about it.

Later I took out my phone and snapped a few photos.

In the first, the wind had thrown my hair across my face again.

In the second, I was holding the book upside down.

In the third, the towel had rolled up again.

In the fourth, I was simply sitting in the sand and laughing.

And that was the one I saved immediately.

Without zooming in.

Without checking my stomach.

Without trying to decide whether my hip line looked “good.”

I just saved it.

Toward evening, I noticed something very strange.

The less I tried to control my body, the freer I felt inside it.

Not like in a picture.

Like in myself.

The sun grew softer.

The wind cooler.

My skin cooled quickly after the water.

I sat on the sand, ate the remains of a now thoroughly unaesthetic croissant, and felt much better than I had that morning inside my perfect scenario.

Before leaving, the woman from the neighboring towel said:

“You have been laughing all day. Good day?”

I looked at my book, the sand in the coffee, my wet hair, and the rolled-up towel.

“Terribly badly organized.”

“The best ones usually are.”

The next day, I set that photo — the one where I am sitting windswept in the sand — as my phone wallpaper.

And I captioned it:

“Do not direct it.”

Now it is my little rule.

If the day turns out beautiful, great.

If the wind throws a book into my face, that is a plot too.

And I definitely want to repeat that beach day.

Only next time without a role.

And I am always happy to meet adults who also know how to laugh at their own perfect plans.