A few months into our relationship, my high school boyfriend started calling me, “Mallorina, my Queena.” As a 16-year-old, I’m not sure there was a nickname more flattering than this one. Actually, 38-year-old Mallory really wouldn’t mind answering to it, either. It was young love, but I knew my boyfriend adored me and went out of his way to try and show me that.
Why, then, did I often feel so insecure and missed? I was, after all, his Queena!
About six months before turning 38, I started really focusing on taking care of my skin. I’m late to the game, I know. I remember my mom telling me to be more mindful of my skin, but these are hard things to hear when you’re a fresh-faced 16-year-old who is a handsome boy’s Queena. However, as I’ve looked at my face, a bit weathered from living life hard (and thinking I could outsmart sun damage and baggy eyes), I decided to take matters into my own hands and finally love on my skin. This should not be as revolutionary as it felt.
A few nights ago, my 3-year-old daughter walked into the bathroom as I was going through my new skin care routine. She asked what I was doing, and I simply told her I was taking care of my face. “Why?” she asked, curiously.
Sometimes her “whys” take my breath away. I hadn’t really considered it until that moment.
Suddenly I found myself blurting out, “Because I think I’m worth it!”
I didn’t expect eye cream to be the catalyst, but I think I clicked a bit more into Queen(a) status in that moment.
I’m sure my teenage boyfriend did all he could to make me feel like a queen, but it was never going to happen until I saw myself as worthy of such a title. There’s something so powerful about first being queen of my own life—taking initiative, naming what I need, and going after what I want. If I’m only queen to someone else and never for myself, it puts the onus on them for my happiness, self-care, and skincare routine.
Just as wrinkle cream is relatively new to my world, so is the concept of loving myself as a queen—not in a way that is demanding or elitist, but in a way that is soft and honoring to my personhood. Be it caring for my skin, making a decision for myself, or asking for something I need, I get to be the queen, or owner, of my own life only when I make it happen. Out of that—choosing to value and love myself in such a way—it invites others to love me in ways that help me feel safe and seen.
I can’t believe how difficult this can be, just as I can’t believe how suddenly and strongly the wrinkles develop. Here we go, Mallorina, my Queena; let’s love our whole self.
