Why I keep looking at my eyes in the mirror every morning

That persistent feeling of asymmetry

I think I spent three hours just staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror last Tuesday. It’s been about nine months since my last surgery, a revision to fix a slightly uneven fold that had been bugging me since my first attempt in college. You start off thinking, ‘Okay, just fix this one little line,’ and then suddenly you’re obsessing over the inner corners. I ended up paying around 4.5 million KRW at a clinic in Gangnam, which honestly felt like a lot, but I kept telling myself it was an investment in not having to deal with it for the next ten years. The doctor was calm, almost too calm, which I guess is what you want, but sitting in that waiting room for forty minutes really gives you too much time to wonder if you’re making a mistake. The receptionist told me it was ‘peak time,’ but watching three other people walk out with those same oversized sunglasses made me feel like I was just another number in a factory line.

The reality of the recovery phase

Recovery wasn’t the glamorous ‘I look refreshed’ transition the brochures show. For the first two weeks, I looked like I’d gone a few rounds in a boxing match. I had to use these ice packs every two hours, and my eyes felt so heavy that even reading a book became a chore. I remember trying to hide the swelling with thick-rimmed glasses, but they kept slipping down my nose because I couldn’t really touch the area around my bridge. People kept asking me if I was sick or tired, and I just stopped explaining. It’s exhausting to defend why you chose to go under the knife, especially when even you aren’t 100% sure the result is what you originally pictured. At least the stitches were out by the tenth day, though the tightness in my lids stayed for nearly a month.

Not quite the symmetry I imagined

There’s this weird disappointment that hits when you realize that ‘natural adhesion’ doesn’t mean your eyes will look perfectly identical. Even now, if I don’t use a bit of eyeliner, one side looks just a fraction of a millimeter wider than the other. I catch myself comparing them in every photo. It’s funny because I see these comments online about people getting their third or fourth revision, and I used to judge that—thinking it was just vanity run wild. But then I find myself wondering if a quick touch-up on the inner corner would finally stop me from obsessing. It’s a slippery slope. Once you start looking at your face as a collection of parts to be tweaked, it’s hard to stop seeing the flaws.

The inconvenience of the follow-up visits

Going back to the clinic for check-ups is honestly the most annoying part. It’s always a long commute, usually involving a transfer at a crowded subway station, and the clinic is always fully booked. I spent forty minutes there last time just to have a nurse look at my eyes for thirty seconds and tell me everything was healing ‘normally.’ They didn’t really address the fact that the left fold still felt slightly stiffer than the right one. I suppose it’s normal, but it leaves you feeling a bit abandoned once the payment is processed. You stop being a person and start being a chart number in their system.

Living with the results

People ask if I regret it, and I honestly don’t know how to answer that anymore. I don’t regret doing away with the daily struggle of eyelid glue—that stuff was ruining my skin anyway—but I’m not sure I’ve reached the level of ‘perfection’ I set out for. My eyes look different, for sure. They look wider, maybe a bit more alert, but there’s still that lingering sense that it’s not quite right. Maybe I’ll get used to it in another year, or maybe I’ll just eventually stop looking so closely. I think for now, I’m just going to stop taking close-up selfies for a while.