the beginning of okay.
I have gorgeous friends.
They will do all the classic hand-waving, pish-poshing and denying if you tell them so, but really?
Lovely.
Ashleigh is a tiny butter-blonde with a figure that her husband appreciates more than we care to know. Kristy is a fiery redhead with a lithe frame, rosy cheeks and eyes that sparkle like aquamarine. Kerry is a delicate-featured brunette with the kind of build that women go to the gym hoping to wrest away from their genetic code. Catherine is the curves, the hazel-eyed temptress, the one with the swingy hair and the long eyelashes.
I won't even get into Lorelei or Jenn (the hottie moms), or the girls I work with (serious babe overload), or the nutty blogging chicks I know who have to fend off the boy-tentions with two fists and a broom.
I am surrounded by sweetness.
And I confess -- I've never felt I measure up. Not for a day.
I have features I like -- my greenish-hazel eyes, my rosy cheeks (when I'm not looking papier mache-pale), my dark hair (those grey hairs need to GO!) and my freckles -- and I play those up as best I can, given the tools I possess. But mascara and ruby-rhinestoned clips and summer tans only get me so far.
Then I have to actually look at the documented proof -- the casual photos, the face staring back at me in the mirror -- and say, "Ahh -- there's the lazy eye." Or "Why isn't my hair any thicker than that?" Or "Where did my chin go?"
I am self-deprecating to a fault. And there is a thing that people -- women especially -- do to self-deprecators. They like to tell them how pretty they look, no matter what evidence might exist to the contrary. I'm not a fan of those affirmations, no matter how well-intended.
They seem like efforts to ice over a burnt cake. If you bite in past the cream and sugar of buttercream frosting, it still tastes burnt.
I have always believed that people were beautiful, as a rule. God made them in all their detailed and unique glory; who would I be not to take note of the amazing flourishes that are present in every single body on earth? The sparkle of a multicoloured iris; the swing of healthy, thick hair; the proud nose that juts out from a well-boned face; the scars that lend character; the swell of hips that exist to bear babies and dance rhumbas and shut kitchen drawers with a quick side-shift; and the grizzled faces created by UVA rays and too many years of laughing and living.
All of them are marvelous and special and true.
I love wrinkles and the stories they tell. I love smiles -- the more gap-toothed and crookedy and one-in-a-million, the better. I love the kooky things that people do with their hair, from the too-high ponytails to the precision-layered locks of the modern Sex and the City-influenced girl.
I love the crazy shapes that bodies take on as a result of either apathy, indulgence, asceticism, or genetics.
But I rarely extend that same grace to my face or frame.
All I can do is cringe and primp and squint and try harder to play up the best and play down the worst.
I feel impossibly unphotogenic. It's ironic, then, that I post pictures of myself on my blog. Wouldn't that point to confidence, to self-love? I wish it were thus, but I think I put my face up in the hopes that I will gradually grow to accept my visage myself.
But that hasn't happened quite yet.
I remember being told more than once by someone I loved dearly that I was "pretty enough" but not "what you'd want to wake up next to...", and instead of smacking him across the face, I nodded. I knew what he meant, because I saw the same thing. I also remember hearing from a crush that if "...you could just...exercise more...you'd be really hot."
Perhaps.
So why didn't I? Why didn't I let the lust for thin consume me, if I was going to spend all this time hacking on myself for my curves? I'm obsessive enough to make anything happen! And postponed gratification is something in which I have copious amounts of expertise.
I don't know. That's an incredibly huge mystery in my life. I am stubborn on a level that goats and bulls would envy -- if they were given to such things -- and I never wanted to truly change myself for someone else. I'd grow out my hair and choose certain clothes that I thought might get a positive reaction (and even as I say that, I cringe), but I would not adjust my body type.
Maybe I was afraid that the problem wasn't really my body -- that it was actually my crazy, inconsistent, dopey personality that was pushing them away from intimacy. It's much easier to think that your fatal flaw is something you can change, rather than something that is so deeply a part of you as to be inaccessible and permanent.
I bemoan my crooked teeth and my weird fingernails and my scars and my oily skin and my flattish hair and the damage I have done with too many hours in the sun. I pinch at the skin under my arms. I smack at my own thighs with disdain. I take a finger and stretch out the skin near my eyes to remember what they looked like without tiny lines.
I try to choose clothes that make me feel special, rather than lumpy.
I apply makeup 'just so' and 'camoflauge' my perceived flaws.
I even wish I'd had braces way back when, but hell -- I wouldn't spend the money on it now, nor do I have that money, so this is what I get. The karaoke-chipped tooth could use a bit of caulking, though. Would I be more pretty then?
On an intellectual and emotional level, I know that none of this is the key to living a wise and valuable life. My parents knew what was important, and they imparted that to me every day of my childhood and teenage years. But my dad is a nattily-dressed soul that would absolutely be described as handsome. And my mother has eyes and a smile and a sense of bearing that renders her one of the loveliest people I've ever known.
My teeth and awkward bearing and occasional zit don't prevent me from doing good in this world. That's the key -- using your life to benefit others. If I could just get past fussing over my looks, I could be a really effective soul. Wait -- I am effective. This DOESN'T stop me. But it doesn't mean I don't think about it.
I forget to be wise and detached when I am applying concealer. I forget to be so smart when I am not asked to dance. I forget to be mindful of what matters when everyone else looks goddessy and I just feel... squishy.
I have the 'loving others' thing down. I say this with utmost confidence.
Even when I get completely angry or self-righteous or pushy or snarky or judgmental, I don't doubt that at the core of my being, I love people with fire and vigour and devotion. Why else would they be worth all that emotion?
But I cannot -- will not -- extend that mercy inward. After all, I know what a lazy, snarky, simplistic twit I really am.
People face trauma in their lives on a daily basis that I cannot comprehend. Other people spend their whole day devoted to the pursuit of political truth and justice. Some people spend all day working at jobs that change the way the world functions. Some people are parents and lovers and husbands and wives. Some people match their socks and don't bump into walls and talk only about things that matter.
None of the above apply to me.
But I do own a lot of hair products.
I should be blogging about poltics or nature or children or gender theory -- something to enlighten the reader.
Instead, I shall say this: If you love someone, accept them as they are. If you desire people to see you a certain way, accept them in that same way. And don't ever, ever make them feel like they would be more worthy if they changed something small or cosmetic or external.
I have years of scars that I poke at daily, and hope for the best. I am working on putting my outsides aside in favour of focusing on the world around me. Not that I don't.
But I'd do an even better job if I didn't glance in the mirror when I walked by and fuss about the way my skirt fits.
11:01:39 PM 
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