Runaway Bride, Miss Universe Belize, and the Myth of Adaptability
What Pageants, Panic Attacks, and Julia Roberts Taught Me About Self-Worth
It used to be really awkward for me to talk about my experience in a beauty pageant. I'd often laugh at the absurdity of a bookish, politically-minded woman stepping into a world of sequins, swimsuits, and judged struts.
*wince*
Beneath the joke, however, was a far more vulnerable truth: I wanted to be chosen.
This essay is not about beauty pageants in any traditional sense, nor is it a feminist critique of the pageant system (I’ll post that one eventually.) Maybe what unsettled me most about the pageant wasn’t the outcome, but the performance, the way I tried to mold myself into what I thought people wanted. That tension, between performance and authenticity, has never quite left me. It showed up again, unexpectedly, in a trending video about a ‘90s romcom.
Shortly after this year’s cohort of delegates was announced, I found myself scrolling through Instagram. A video popped up. “How was this movie even made?!” a creator yelled.
He was referring to Runaway Bride, the 1999 romcom starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. I don’t remember if it was my love of Gere or Roberts that led me to watch this movie in college, however, I do remember the uneasiness that sat on my chest as the plot unfolded.
A Romcom, Eggs, and Identity
The story begins when writer Ike Graham (Gere), desperate to revive his newspaper column, is pitched a story about a woman who repeatedly runs away from her fiancés at the altar (Roberts).
A slurring bar patron pitched, “She likes to dump the grooms right at the altar…guess what, she’s got the next victim all lined up.”
Ike’s article leads to blowback from the man-eater herself, Maggie Carpenter (Roberts), leading to his firing. Ike opts to visit the town for himself in anticipation of her next wedding to Bob Kelly (played by Law and Order’s Christopher Meloni), hoping for a story that would get his job back.
“How dare he wait for her to fail?” I remember scoffing at the TV. I was silently rooting for her to prove him wrong and walk down the aisle *again* even as the vibes were clearly off.
Then came the ending – it all boiled down to how she liked her eggs in the morning. According to Gere’s character, (it still pisses me off that this revelation had to come from a man) Roberts’ character adapted her preferred style of eggs to the particular preferences of the man she was dating (scrambled with salt, pepper, and dill, for one, over easy for another, garden omelet with egg whites for the health nut, etc).
Her ever-changing egg preferences became a quiet symbol of her fractured sense of self, never choosing herself, and always adapting to someone else’s taste.
There are a lot of things I’ve changed to get people to like me. Several exes went so far as to call me passive.
I could attribute it to religious trauma, or being the eldest child, or a decade of living life in a foreign country where adaptability and flying under the radar are skills necessary for social and self-preservation (more on that another time.)
I still don’t know how to shake this adaptability tendency.
Now and then, I surprise even myself with a burst of boldness.
But since 2018, I’ve mostly been in survival mode- quietly, desperately (sometimes erratically) trying to prove I’m anything but passive. That I’m still in there somewhere.
And then, in 2022, I applied to be a delegate for Miss Universe Belize. I waited until 27, when I felt mentally and emotionally mature enough to handle the attention and scrutiny.
I wanted a chance to give back to my country with my confidence, beauty, and brains. I didn’t have a tangible message other than to uplift other Belizean creatives. I was just happy to be here, per usual.
“Go and have fun,” my dad said as I stressed about funds, dresses, shoes, messaging, etc.
A month before heading home for the pageant, I went to the doctor and requested to be put on anxiety medication. Graduate school and the lifestyle I’d been living made the panic attacks I’d had since 2018 that much more frequent. I could mask it with some meds, I thought.
I didn’t anticipate even more stressors. As the summer before the pageant came to a close, I started to feel the pressure to conform to a pageant persona closing in. “You’re not promoting your sponsors enough.” “What is your branding?” “Are you practicing your walk?” “Did you see the post from [insert ig fan page] listing you in the top 3?”
I struggled to distinguish between the negative self-criticism in my head and the comments people made about me. I shared my anxieties in meetings with pageant coordinators and the other delegates. Pageant leadership organized mental health seminars and media training to get us ready for the stress that was coming.
The Weight of Validation
The truth is that somewhere along the way, I bought into the idea that my worth and value were tied to how people viewed me. While I’d been in therapy for years, I signed up for Miss Belize believing I could prove my worth to myself by getting validation from others. If I win, I’d be someone.
When we arrived at a hotel in Belize City for the start of pageant week, I recognized several delegates’ faces from primary school and church camp. Others I’d only seen in beautiful dresses on Instagram and in delegate Zoom meetings.
We were all so nervous. I could feel it. As the days rolled on, I maintained my distance from the other women. While they spent time together, I took naps, selfie-stick photoshoots, another anxiety pill, and tried to catch my breath before the next event. I called it “focus.”
This worked until we all started reading the comments. The online criticism tore through our nerves, adding friction to relationships that were still forming. We were already physically exhausted, running from photoshoots to media appearances to nonstop events, but it was the Instagram and Facebook commentary that wore many of us down the most.
They critiqued our smiles, walks, bodies, and pitches for the crown. It was a silent chipping away at our self-worth and confidence, the kind of erosion no one prepares you for. We were roommates, but also contestants, being picked apart, compared, chewed up, and spit out in real time.
Choosing Myself, Finally
Then came the actual pageant.
The day came, and I couldn’t eat anything. After the first segment, I ran backstage looking for a bucket to throw up in. When nothing came out, I laughed it off and readied myself for the next part of the show. I forgot the choreography and said lots of nothing in the Q&A. I could feel the hundreds of eyes on me as sweat dripped down my back.
The voice in my head was louder than the applause, or Farruko’s “Pepas” being played on repeat during the swimsuit segment.
Why was I even doing this?
There's a word that refers to Belizeans who move to the States and then return home with elevated levels of pretension: BelAm. I used to fear the word- hate it even. It's wielded with judgment, and in the years leading up to leaving for college in America, I feared the day I was no longer seen as authentically Belizean. I feared the dilution of my Belizeanness.
All those fears resurfaced in the final minutes of the show.
While we waited for the livestream to get back from commercial, I remember thinking, “Can I just lose and get this over with?” I was done being judged. I was done feeling like that little girl who did not feel part of the only culture she knew. I was tired of feeling like the good, moral decisions I made and stood for were wrong, and my greatest weakness. Even as I smiled with former queens and performers backstage, I craved the moment after the announcement when I’d already lost and proved to myself a fact I already knew: you don’t deserve this.
Shocker- it was all in my head.
They asked the top two to walk out. My mind was blank.
“First runner up…..Alina Scott.”
There it is. Second place. I knew it.
I hugged the winner. “It’s you!” I said, as she savored her moment. I walked to my place at the back of the stage behind her. She was glorious, her gown reflecting every single one of the lights in the Bliss Center.
The show concluded, and I rushed to the dressing room. I let out a wail and a half. It was over. I couldn’t get out of the loud, red evening gown fast enough. The 50lb weighted backpack I’d been carrying all week was suddenly gone. I no longer had to perform. I cried backstage before leaving the venue with my family, completely exhausted.
A New Story, My Story
It's funny to look back on that moment post-PhD. Something about defending my dissertation and believing my research across the finish line changed my brain chemistry. I could do it, and I was no different than before I defended. I could have done it the entire time. I was always good enough.
It is an odd feeling to realize that sometimes your self talk lies.
I had a similar moment watching the women who have gone up for Miss Belize since 2022. It was so much easier for me to see how valuable, beautiful, and compelling they all were than it was to see that in myself.
I wish I could share this feeling with everyone, including the version of myself that felt small for not winning or that felt the need to perform on a stage to prove my worth.
I wish I could share this feeling with the women currently vying for the crown. You really can do this (and do it well), but even then, you are so much more than this opportunity.
Now back to Runaway Bride (🚨spoiler alert 🚨)– the two end up falling in love in an enemies-to-lovers, small town, coming-of-self, romcom where they don’t end up together until she chooses herself.
The moral of the story might be that you can only find happiness in pursuing yourself. Or that love comes when you follow your dreams. Or that love of self matters more than love of others. (Or make enough mistakes, and Richard Gere will show up in your small town to save you from a lifetime of regret… a girl can hope.)
While I have never changed my preferred type of eggs for a man, Runaway Bride always cuts me deep. It's a horror story about the cost of choosing safety over self, and all you have to lose when you do not nurture your passion, creativity, and calling.
I don’t regret going up for Miss Universe Belize, and would do it again (👀), but for the first time in three years, I finally have the words to explain how much it shook me silly. I’m finally giving the girl who was terrified backstage some grace.
In the last Q&A section, I was asked about the (then) recent decision to allow married women and mothers to participate in Miss Universe. Since then, the organization has also expanded the age range of competitors to include women older than 27. My response said something about femininity in all its forms (a banger.) I stand by it and finally feel like I’m living it.
These days, I know exactly how I like my eggs.
More importantly, I know I don’t need a dramatic romcom storyline. I’ve got something better: a story where the girl doesn’t run. She steps into her purpose, and she chooses herself, every damn time.
To quote a recent TikTok trend, “I almost forgot that was the whole point.”
