On the weekends, I usually wake up at noon, scarf down a Starbucks pain au chocolat and latte, then subsist on snacks until dinner time.

It’s a pattern formed largely through laziness (making brunch is a haaaaassle), and partially as a mental trick—since I’m only having two meals a day, I can justify intaking exclusively indulgent food.

Today, this setup wasn’t going to work. I hadn’t quite eaten my fill last night and my stomach was demanding a proper sandwich. So I walked over to Blue Dog Cafe on 56th and 6th, enjoying the warm glow of New York’s late-arriving spring, all the more so since I’m convinced that summer will overtake it in a matter of weeks.

Inside Blue Dog Cafe, I mulled over my choices. I’d narrowed the vast menu down to three breakfast sandwiches: nutella-banana, apricot-brie, or fig-ricotta-honey. As I wrangled this existential crisis of taste, I heard two female voices ask the girl at the counter about various platters and soup options. One voice had a light accent, the other sounded heavily Slavic.

I turned and saw two gazelle-like women, in tight jeans and loose tops, all legs, elbows and flawless complexions, with an air of effortless nonchalance, as though they glided through this world and knew that people would be endlessly patient with them.

They were models—I was sure of it because I could feel myself fold inward as though I had encountered a superior species of homo sapiens. I felt somehow not worthy and knew that should they deign to speak to me, I’d probably bow my head and hum-and-haw the way that maids used to react when spoken to by their ladies.

I was surprised at myself. I’m not one for having body image, self-esteem or confidence issues.

As those two beautiful young things continued talking to each other about eating healthy prior to a job and looking puffy after a cup of wine from the night before, I realized that my issue wasn’t with image but with status. I associated models like them with a jet-setting lifestyle where they moved among the rich and powerful and were catered to by us—the rest of society.

The funny thing is, I can wrap my head around the rich and powerful. Whether beautiful or not, I see them as people woven into their particular social fabric, constrained to behave in certain ways—be it ruthless, shrewd, or courteous—in order to hold onto their wealth and power.

The models are different. They’re like sylphs who move through the layers of society, mingling with the bling and the dirt, but not picking up any of it.

Their only power is their beauty—something that completely depends on the eye of the beholder. But as a beholder, I have been conditioned from birth by the media environment to admire those long limbs, that languorous attitude and, to a degree, those exotic accents.

I was relieved when the counter girl informed me that my sandwich was ready—I had chosen the banana-nutella. After several minutes of sitting next to the two models, I was bursting to move out of their presence and back into the world of us lowly ordinary people.

Beauty, I realize, is something that will always conquer me. Exactly what constitutes beauty in my mind is partially media-constructed. Had I grown up in a different environment, I may not be floored by the particular frame, face and carriage of these two women.

But I would still be awed to encounter pure beauty, because it operates beyond wealth and power.

This post is part of the Dear Diary series.

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By Jia Jia
Photography from Vogue