What I learned about my life reading magazines for two hours.

Yesterday afternoon I took myself off for a cut and colour.

Before I scooted out the door I considered taking my laptop and using the two hours I’d be sitting still – UNINTERRUPTED – to get through some emails and personal admin. I even briefly entertained the idea of using the time to set up a schedule for the remaining three months of the year and a Christmas plan. Then I remembered that I am not the scheduling type, and I’m certainly not the Christmas-planning type, so I left my computer at home.

I thought, no. I am going to use these two hours to luxuriate in magazines. To enjoy some “down time”. To forget about the multitude of tasks – work, family, home, social – that are swirling around my head on any given day and just be.

So I arrived and promptly began devouring a selection of magazines that were placed in front of me. They ranged from tabloids, to high fashion, to home design. Goodie, I thought! Two hours escaping real life starts now!

I started flicking through a number of different weeklies and I can’t lie. I felt funny. Every second story was about someone’s weight. There were stories of inspirational weight loss and humiliating weight gain. There were stories about women who were looking too gaunt which obviously meant they’re facing marital problems and/or career ruin and women who are obviously finally happy because they’re thinner/stronger/curvier. In every instance their weight was used as a gauge for their life.

Ergh, I thought. I am pregnant with my third child at the moment and in the almost six years I have been in childrearing mode I have had more body variations than Tim Tam have released new flavours.

I began mentally tallying my various body shapes and began comparing them to the women in the magazines. It dawned on me that according to magland I have been variously miserable, empowered, stressed …. actually how about I stop this game? Analysing my body in such detail felt worse than reality.

Time for a new genre! I made my way through a few fashion bibles.

A glimpse inside the narrative in my head during this exercise:

Wow.

This doesn’t look much like my life. At all.

I really have to lift my fashion game.

Who can afford $599 for a top? And $900 for a pair of shoes?

What am I doing wrong that I can’t afford these things??

Gosh no wonder my skin isn’t smooth: I don’t use a serum! Or perform a nightly mask! Or have a facial every month! I haven’t had a facial in over a year!

I really have to lift my skincare regime. NB: Institute a skincare regime and think about tweaking it later.

Who knew beauty was meant to be seasonal? I don’t have a “winter makeup look” that is distinct from my “summer”, “spring” or “autumn” make up look…. I haven’t updated my eye ‘palette’ in over a year.

What is wrong with me? 

I really need to lift my hair care regime.

BONUS POINTS for being at the hairdresser right now though!!  Maybe I’m not a complete fashion magazine failure??

Who are these people???

Where do they get the money and the genes for this type of fashion?

WHY AM I DOING LIFE WRONG?

At this point, I wondered if my problem is that with the exception of my two favourite food titles (Thank you Delicious. & Donna Hay) I don’t read magazines regularly. I used to. Occasionally I’ll splash out on a Vanity Fair and if I’m in a waiting room I’ll pick up a mag, but I don’t read any religiously.

I concluded that given my abstinence from glossies, binge-reading was perhaps the problem.

So I reached for the pile of home magazines instead. I follow a number of interior stylists on Instagram and I LOVE seeing their posts. It’s a glimpse inside a world that is beautiful and completely foreign to me.

I live in a house which doesn’t have a ‘look’: it’s a home that is filled with whatever furniture we have required and acquired over the years from Gumtree, to family hand-me-downs to the occasional Ikea-shop.

I update cushions as regularly as I update my makeup – eg when it’s empty or ruined. Our daughters don’t inhabit decorated nurseries – they sleep in bedrooms which are filled with the basics of a bed, some cupboards, a bookshelf and a few toy boxes. Our walls are not covered in artwork.

As I flicked through page after page of glorious immaculate homes, stylish storage solutions, divine furniture and lamps that cost more than our couch, my heart sank. Never-mind stylish – we don’t have a storage solution!

It was the final confirmation. Not only is my body inadequate, my fashion & beauty credentials non-existent but I am also a total failure on the home front. How have I navigated 33 years of life with such ineptitude?

At this point I could see the error in my ways. Not any errors I may have committed in relation to fashion or homewares, but the error in letting myself buy in to the pages. It reminded me of my favourite Man Who Has It All tweet:

Wife online? Kids asleep? Time to relax with a glossy magazine to find out how fat, old, tired & ugly you are. ‘Me time’.

— manwhohasitall (@manwhohasitall) October 19, 2015

Magazines are not about reality; they’re about escapism and aspiration. And taken in small doses I am certain they’re perfectly restorative and inspiring. But I’d caution inexperienced readers like myself against spending two hours immersed in a world that is entirely un-relatable. And I would caution anyone against using magazines as a benchmark for one’s own life.

It made me wonder, though, couldn’t the same be said for social media like Instagram and Facebook? Why don’t those make me question my life-adequacy?

I think it’s because on Facebook and Instagram we choose the images we see. I follow a mix of bloggers, celebrities and friends. I see a mix of food, home, kids, fashion and plenty of those images are steeped in un-photoshopped reality. The contrast is what I love.

The images we rarely see on social media. Post continues after gallery:

I suspect if my feed was filled with perfectly-curated clothes, air-brushed bodies and immaculate homes it would make me feel the way I did yesterday. But it isn’t. The ability to follow or unfollow a variety of accounts is what feels different.

The happy conclusion I drew as I left the salon? Next time I will take my computer.

I like my real life more than I like ‘escaping’. Yes our house is messy and un-styled, I am no fashionista and my body isn’t perfect, but it’s real and it’s the only life I know how to live.

Are magazines an escape or a judgement to you?