You ever sit in the dark at 2am and hate your own fingers? That’s me right now. My kids are long gone and my husband is snoring like a freight train in the other room. I’m staring at this tiny screen until my eyes burn. You know that feeling when you look at a photo of yourself and all you see is a mistake? Not a person. Just a mistake that needs fixing before anyone else sees it. I’m a fitness teacher. People pay me to tell them how to be "fit." I got twenty thousand people watching my every move on the phone. They think I’m some kind of machine that never breaks. But I’m 51. Things are starting to drop. Gravity is a real jerk. I took this photo after the morning class and I looked good in the mirror but the camera—the camera is a liar. It caught this little fold of skin right above my leggings. Just a tiny ripple of fat and loose skin that wasn't there ten years ago. You spend three hours zooming in until the pixels look like big blocks. You use your thumb to try and smooth it out but you make the wall behind you look wavy. Then you gotta fix the wall. Then you realize your arm looks too big. So you fix the arm. It’s like a house of cards. You move one thing and the whole world breaks. I should be sleeping. My mother is in the hospital again and I haven’t called the nurse back yet but here I am... fighting a piece of my own stomach. My mom would laugh her head off if she saw me. Back home in the village she’d say "Why are you worried about a little meat? You look like you can carry a water jug." But here? If you got a fold, you’re done. People want the dream. They don't want a 51 year old woman with a C-section scar and a bit of a belly. They want the lie. And I give it to them. I’m a professional liar and the pay is okay but the hours are relly killing me. You start thinking about your name. Your reputation. If one of those young girls in my 6am HIIT class saw that fold they’d talk. I can hear them in the locker room. "Did you see Maria? She’s losing it." It’s a joke. I can out-squat all of them. I’m stronger now than I was at twenty. But they don't care about strong. They care about smooth. Everything has to be smooth like a baby’s butt or they don't think you know what you're doing. Sometimes I just want to post the real thing. I want to say HEY LOOK I AM OLD AND THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE. But I can’t. I got bills. I got a kid in college who needs money for books and a dad who needs a better wheelchair. I’m the brand. You can't have a cracked brand. So I zoom in more. I use the "Heal" tool. I’m healing myself into a ghost. It's funny, right? I'm literally erasing myself so people like me more. My daughter saw me doing it once. She’s 22. She didn't say a word. She just looked at my screen and then looked at my face and walked out. That hurt more than the comments from strangers. She knows I’m a fake. I tell her she’s beautiful and then she sees me deleting my own skin. What a great mom I am. I’m laughing so I don't jump out a window. HA HA. Very funny. You get so tired. Your neck gets that crick in it from leaning over the phone. You wonder when it ends. Do I do this until I’m 70? Am I gonna be airbrushing my wrinkles in a nursing home? Probably. My followers want to see "fit at 50." They don’t want to see "tired at 50." They don't want to see the person who spent all night crying becuase her dad didn't recognize her today. They want the abs. Always the abs. I finally hit post. It’s 3:14 AM. The photo is perfect. My stomach is as flat as a board. I look like a movie star. I feel like garbage. I’m sitting here waiting for the first like. I need that little red heart to tell me I’m still allowed to be here. My thumb is hovering over the refresh button. Just one person. Please tell me the lie worked. Now I gotta get up in three hours and pretend I’m full of energy. I’ll drink three espressos and smile and tell everyone to "push through the pain." What a load of crap. The real pain isn't the lunges. It’s the three hours of my life I’ll never get back because I was scared of a skin fold. I’m gonna go stare at the ceiling now. Maybe I’ll dream about being invisible. That would be easier than this.