Oh my god, y’all. I just discovered a beautiful-skin button on my camera. Well, actually, it’s a sliding scale, this little thing you drag back and forth in selfie mode. (How have I not noticed this before?) On one end of the scale is “your normal, ole, raggedy-ass skin,” and on the other end of the scale is “bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, don’t you look marvelous?” Perhaps you’re already familiar with this digital witchcraft technology, but seriously–in under two seconds, every skin issue I have disappeared. The histamine in my forehead, the dark circles under my eyes, the blackheads–all of it–gone. Of course, I don’t look any different in person, but online my face is–for all intents and purposes–healed.

Thank you, Jesus.

That being said, I think I look kind of ridiculous. That’s why I’m laughing in the photo above. I mean, that’s simply not my face. Additionally, the photo makes me think of my senior photos. This afternoon my friend Bonnie stopped by the house (with more food!), and she was looking at them, since they’re hanging on my parents’ walls. I said, “Those are heavily–heavily–airbrushed.” Mom added, “Of all the times for Marc’s acne to flare up.”

The worst of the acne, I remember, was a dime-sized scab, smack-dab in between my eyebrows. Talk about an angry-looking son-of-a-gun. I’m honestly not sure what God was thinking when he invented acne. As if teenagers don’t have enough challenges, so let’s give them something that will boil, bleed, scab, scar, and puss-up–on their faces. Like, welcome to planet earth–don’t expect it to be easy, kid. (Uh, thank you, Lord?) Who knows? Maybe God’s really a dermatologist, or gets some sort of commission at the JC Penny’s makeup counter. I don’t mean this to sound sacrilegious, I’m just saying–it would explain a few things.

On one hand, I’m grateful that there are things like airbrushing and makeup. In my entire adult life, I’ve only used them occasionally, but they have come in handy a number of times (like my senior photos or that time I never performed on Broadway). My friend George says, “Ain’t no barn that don’t look better with a little paint on it.” With this is mind, when I look at my senior photos, I’m grateful that big zit isn’t there. But whereas I’m all for putting your best foot forward, I hope I don’t ever get used to being “heavily airbrushed” because it just doesn’t seem real to me. It feels like I’m trying to fool both me and everyone else about the way I look. I suppose someone else’s motivation for covering up imperfections could be different. (That’s okay.)

I’m not trying to start a debate about makeup. (Thankfully I don’t seem to have many debaters for readers.) I’m honestly not exactly sure where I’m going with this, since I don’t feel strongly one way or the other about the topic. Like, I’m mostly for being authentic and doing the best with what God gave you. But I also do my hair every day, pick out clothes that fit just so, and have ears that are pierced. I use filters on Instagram. Even on this blog, I almost always take my pictures from a certain angle to ensure that my chin doesn’t look bigger than my forehead. So I’m okay with making changes and “manipulating reality.” I just want to be perfectly clear. Anytime you see a picture of me online or anywhere else–that’s not the real me–it’s just a picture.

Maybe this point seems obvious, but I think it bares fleshing out. Recently I interviewed someone and wrote a story about them for an online project. I did this sort of thing for five years when I used to work for a local magazine, and my intent–every time–is to leave out anything that might be construed as negative. I guess this could be viewed as makeup for storytelling, presenting the person in the best light possible. But even when my intentions are best, the interviewee isn’t always completely pleased. In this recent case they said, “Well, I would have phrased that differently. I would have left that part out.” My response to this sort of thing is always the same–“Of course you would have. But this is my story about you, not your story about you.”

Insert smiley face here.

Okay (I got it). Here’s where this is going. All of us work so hard to put our best foot forward. I guess we should. I mean, don’t let yourself go, honey. (Gay guys like to call everyone “honey,” Mom.) Still, I’m coming to believe that you can airbrush and make up and filter all you want–do what makes you happy–but it won’t make a damn bit of difference–a real difference, that is. Like, I can spend twenty minutes on capturing the perfect selfie and think I look flawless, and you can take one look at it and think, God, his hair’s a mess, and I wish he’d stop wearing the same shirt every day. In other words, if you’re making yourself up to get someone else’s approval–stop it–because you can’t manipulate anyone into loving you. People either embrace you for who and what you are–or they don’t.

For me, this is (finally) starting to be okay, and I think it has to do with authenticity. In other words, the more I accept myself exactly as I am, the more I genuinely like me and the less I care whether anyone else does or not. For one thing, no one else’s story about me will ever be my story about me. It’s just not possible. What’s more, no one’s story about me–including my own–will ever be completely accurate. Like, if I say my skin looks fabulous, and you say it looks just okay, who’s to say which of us is right? Isn’t it just a matter of opinion, and isn’t the truth probably somewhere in between? I’m not saying criticism doesn’t bother me, but I am saying it bothers me much less than it used to. I get over it faster. Also, I know there will always be something to criticize about this body if I or anyone else wants to criticize it. Better then to love this body (and every body), without conditions, which is to say, just as it is, with or without makeup, filters, and manipulations.