Before I knew it, I was missing jokes in the Saturday night happy hour, or important information in the Monday morning team meeting because I couldn’t look away from my flyaway ponytail or the way my eyes disappear when I smile. But staring at my face for hours a day on Zoom handed it a microphone. After years of therapy, I’d mostly quieted that voice.

In college, I turned my bedroom mirror to the wall after losing hours poking and prodding at every inch of the body that a voice told me amounted to no more than a collection of flaws.

As a kid, I circled my wrist with two fingers under my desk over and over each day, reassuring myself it hadn’t doubled in size overnight, no matter what that scary little voice in my head whispered. I’ve had a complicated relationship with my body pretty much from the day I became conscious of my own reflection. But as the platform became not only a work meeting room but also a happy hour gathering place, the Thanksgiving dinner table and even a portal into a loved one’s funeral, I could no longer ignore the way staring at my own face made me feel. I’d worked for a fully online company before, so when my current job went remote in March 2020, I already knew to angle my computer’s camera just so and turn on every light in the room to make my little square look its best. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic began, I was no stranger to Zoom calls.

Zoom meeting free cut out at 45 minutes