When You’re Always The Hot Mess
By Maura Arnold
We all know that girl who never quite has her shit together.
That girl who awkwardly fumbles into your 9 AM psych lecture at 9:05, hair half done, mascara smudged on her eyelids, skirt tucked into her tights, a mess of papers peaking out of her fraying purse. You watch her sit down, spill a little bit of her coffee on her desk, attempt to mop it up with her sleeve, and dig through her mess of a bag looking for a nonexistent pen. She then looks at you with a guilty smile and whispers (a little too loudly) asking if you have a spare pen, which you begrudgingly hand over.
She’s a hot mess. Every single day. But you know she gets pretty good grades, she never hands in anything too late, and she always manages to show up to class in one piece (more or less). She’s not enough of a mess that you actually feel pity for her, she’s just more of an entertaining spectacle to observe.
When you catch up with her later in the day, she relays some ridiculous story about how she dropped her phone in the toilet (for the 2nd time this month) last night after drunkenly saying something reeeeeally embarrassing to her ex at a party. But she can’t stay and chat – she’s running off to the library to put the finishing touches on a 10 page essay due in an hour. She never fails to make you wonder how any of this is physically possible, but you’re always left feeling thankful you at least have your life together.
I’m not ashamed to say that I am that girl that never has and that never will have my shit completely together. My senior year in high school I racked up about 30 tardies (and managed to avoid all said punishments), my lipstick is always slightly smudged and I’m constantly finding random stains on brand new pieces of clothing. I trip up and down all stairs that stand in my way and I awkwardly laugh at my own jokes. My outfits are always slightly weather inappropriate and I’m really bad at making small talk. I run on caffeine and the occasional paper extension grant. I always feel like I’m one step behind the rest of humanity, and despite the fact that I always make lists and set alarms, I’m constantly scrambling at the last minute to get everything done and I’m ALWAYS late.
Part of me envies the girls who manage to show up to an 8 AM class hungover with perfect hair and and make up, who look flawless in every Instagram, who get their papers done weeks in advance and edit them 5 or 6 times. I really try hard to be more like those girls, but I think I’m physically incapable. It’s in my genes. I can’t make it to the gym everyday, sometimes I forget to do laundry and I have to wear the same outfit I wore yesterday, and if I’m hungover I show up to class looking like an unidentifiable species in a baseball hat. Sure, you’ve all been there, had an off day or two – but I assure that I’m there nearly every day of my life.
And guess what? That’s okay. I don’t feel guilty for not having a color coded agenda or the perfect wardrobe. And if you do have your sh*t together, kudos to you, because I don’t, never have, and probably never will. At the end of the day I can say that despite the fact that I am a mess 99.9999% of the time, I’m happy with myself and with my life, and above all else, I am 100% me. I’m that girl you look to on your worst day when you feel like you’re falling apart, and you think to yourself well at least I’m more together than she is. My stories provide comedic relief to all of my friends because in the end all you can really do is laugh it off. And although I often question why I can’t just manage to get it together like a normal person, I wouldn’t really want to be any other way.
Because then I wouldn’t be me.