‘Every Day the Strokes Become Steadier’: My Eyeliner Will Not Make Me a Bad Surgeon

By Paula Lago Burity 

Thick, inky-black strokes. Each brush of the pen forms sharp points at the peripheries of my eyes. Sometimes, I add smaller ones at my inner corners. Hidden in the graphic lines is a pep talk, an assurance that I won’t cry today. 

Since I was a tween, I had coveted dramatic eyeliner: the type that is drawn generously on the eyelids so that they look half-closed in some mock-sultry way. The heavily tattooed makeup artist at the MAC store fit the bill exactly. She told me that she had applied her eyeliner on the bus and I had gazed at her in wonder and amazement – a witch, a skilled painter whose canvas was the paper-thin skin that clothed her eyes. With a sweet smile that warmed her painted lips, she taught me how to mimic her artistry. She gave me the courage to try it myself. 

First, draw a line from the outer corner of your eye, aligning it with the curve of your waterline. Place the tip of your brush at the end of the line and gently swipe it over your eyelid, over the lashes. I have spent countless hours obsessing over the angle and the architecture of my eyeliner; I have contented myself with odd-looking tails, making it look like my eyeballs were on skewers, before graduating to wobbly triangles followed by short stumpy somethings that might have resembled what my blue-haired, undercut-shaven, ear-cuff-wearing mentor wore on that day she changed my life. 

I wore eyeliner every day, including to school as soon as I was sure that my labour of love wouldn’t have to be sheepishly rubbed off in front of a stern-looking teacher. Looking back at my younger self, I cringe. But hidden within those debatable decisions (among them, the fateful choice of wearing non-waterproof eyeliner to a pool party) was the fact that I was growing in confidence. I was metamorphosing from a gangly, brace-faced child who was unsure of who she was to a young adult (who was still unsure of who she was). 

I wore eyeliner to my driving test, to my interviews for medical school, to my graduation. 

With each ill-thought-out stroke of my eyeliner pen, I built up the confidence to look a little funny in public, to laugh at myself, to appreciate the small things – like when you manage to position the brush perfectly so that the eyeliner comes out in one stroke. I was getting better at it. 

Eyeliner became so synonymous with me that my mother forgot what my face looked like without it. I wear eyeliner for comfort. Putting it on my face feels like I’m prepared for what life will throw at me. 

Despite all this history between my eyeliner and I, why did I, as a fledgling medical student, anxiously scrub my artwork off with wet toilet paper in the hospital changing rooms? For fear of seeming like I don’t know what I’m doing. I had worn eyeliner to my university placement countless times, so why was it that today I chose to undertake this removal, using only my front phone camera to guide me? 

I am halfway through removing the second eye, dark speckles of makeup orbiting the first, when I realise that it’s because I am speaking to surgeons today. 

Surgeons have always made me feel vulnerable, mostly because the idea of speaking to a surgeon, always seemingly so aloof and busy and full of expertise, welcomes the frenzied icy fingers of imposter syndrome to grab hold of my heart and squeeze. 

The surgeon in my mind’s eye is wearing a pressed suit in neutral, inoffensive colours, has a salt-and-pepper haircut, and expensive leather shoes. He speaks fast and doesn’t ever stumble over his words. He walks even faster – almost willing you not to keep up – and throws jargon at you over his shoulder like he’s calling to his dog at the park. He asks you questions anyone could answer and seems surprised when you know that the human body usually houses two kidneys. Or he asks you questions nobody has known the answer to ever and seems disgruntled and disappointed when you awkwardly say that you don’t know. 

The simple fact is that the picture of the surgeon in my mind’s eye is fundamentally incompatible with who I am. And who am I? An inexperienced medical student with shaky hands, who is wearing her hair in two neat plaits on either side of her head and has painted her eyes with thick black strokes to prepare her for the day ahead. Her notebook sticks out from the shallow pocket in her trousers, and her shoes are scuffed from overuse. 

I used to think that it took one person to make me feel small. An ill-judged comment, a stolen answer to a lecturer’s question, an unwanted hand pawing at my body. I was furious at the behaviour of people who would do these things to make me feel less than and raged at anyone who would listen in the same way I cursed my eyeliner ink for bleeding out of the neat boundaries I had set for it. But as I shamefully wiped at my eyes with tissues the day of working with the surgeons, erasing a fundamental part of myself, I found that the hands doing the erasing didn’t belong to anyone but me. 

I had convinced myself that my accomplishments were not valid; the skills that I had acquired through work experience, employment, university, and beyond were a trick. I had convinced myself that I had lied my way to where I was, that I was an infiltrator in the system of expensive leather shoes, pressed suits, and swinging lanyards. Of course, none of this is true.

I am removing my eyeliner – that I sacrificed fifteen extra minutes of sleep for – so that when I look in the dirty locker room mirror, I see less of the unsure woman in front of me. But I find that, after tossing the tissue in the bin and staring at my bare face in my phone camera, I almost see more insecurity. 

That eyeliner, a line drawn from the outer corner of my eye that is aligned with the curve of my waterline, required steady fingers – like a surgeon. Placing the tip of my brush at the end of the line and gently swiping it over my eyelid demonstrated a muscle memory that takes years of practice – like a surgeon. My eyeliner had required me to use as many fine motor control muscles as it takes to deftly hold a scalpel. 

Perhaps the surgeon in my mind’s eye should look less like the man that I described and more like the wonderful makeup artist who showed me everything that she knew and gave me the confidence to try it myself. 

I still don’t wear eyeliner for placement. But slowly and surely, I’m building up confidence. Every day the strokes become steadier. I can feel my tween self-smiling at me, wobbly wings framing her eager eyes.