Wednesday, April 23, 2014

what is beauty?

when i first opened up and felt like writing tonight..i reallly did not plan on the topic being about beauty at all...but i was on facebook and saw the post for who was chosen as the most beautiful women and it was Lupita Nyong'o...now i havent seen 12 years a slave yet..but i will soon..maybe tonight if i can find it online somewhere..but this is a woman whose picture i looked at and for a moment i thought ' i want to be beautiful too'...

beauty and me and not things that i associate together at all...i am me..sometimes i tolerate myself..but i see nothing beautiful about myself...and its taken a long, very long time to get to the point where i CAN tolerate myself..and look in the mirror and actually focus in on myself ...gosh i avoid mirrors, i avoid looking at myself..i dont evene have a mirror in my bedroom..and will literally walk out of the door in the morning without looking in a mirror at all..because there is no point..because i still have the same face that i grew up with..i still have the same face that has been told time and time again to change...to be someone else..to be something else..to be better, prettier, nicer, than i was...so why look in the mirror....like i said ..there is no point...

i am not ashamed of how i look..but i can be very critical of my looks..i am very critical of my body...critical of the scars..critical of what i have put my body through and lived to see another day...but no i dont think i am ashamed of my body...standing naked and looking in the mirror embarrasses me..and i dont do it often...but when i am alone..and it is just me..and there are no extra eyes around to judge or torment me..then i dont care ..i wear what i want..i can do what i want..and there is no shame..i am comfortable..almost comfortable in my skin...

but insert society, insert work, friends, relationships, any of that ..and the wanting to hide away comes back...again not so much because of shame..but more because i have been told over and over again that i am not beautiful..that i am not wanted..that i will never find love or get married or any of that...i am told i am stupid and worthless and that i need to lose weight, not eat, restrict, that i should care more about myself, i should take care of myself more...over and over...at least two times a week there is a conversation about me..how i look, what i wear, am i making enough effort...this is what i grew up hearing, and maybe i come off as not caring..no i dont wear make up because i dont like it..because i was made up as a child and didnt like it then either....normally i am in jeans and a shirt and sneakers..unless im going to work..and working is not all dressy either...when i want to i can put effort into how i look i guess...but if the message i got and still get is that i am not good enough..that i am not beautiful as i am..then no amount of make up or dieting or anything will change that...

the sad thing is...that i always am thinking about, comparing, looking at my body, at the bodies around me..wondering why i cant look like them..wondering why i got stuck with the body i have..why cant i pick a new body? why cant i look like how i think i want to look in my head?  where is the button to change me into someone beautiful??

so i guess the question is still...what is beauty? what makes a person beautiful?  it is more than accepting who you are..it is more than being comfortable in your own skin...it is just so much more than that...but i never learned what that was...i never learned that beauty is something that is individual for each person..its not the make up, or the clothes, or the money, the body, the special hollywood status...because even with all of that..i am almost certain that i will not feel any more beautiful then than i do now...

i know all the says..beauty is within, you have to love yourself as you are, you have to accept who you are..be comfortable in your skin, say what you feel, be honest, love, laugh, confidence...that is what beauty is...but again that does not work for me..how do you combat 30 years of feeling not beautiful..of being compared to everyone around you, of not fitting in because of body size or skin color or the type of clothes i wear or how i talk or what i like...

it is hard to feel beautiful when all of my thoughts focus on what is wrong with me..i was talking pictures of myself today..because of my hair...i love my hair..i love the purple thats in it...does it make me feel beautiful?  no..do i smile when other people comment on my hair?  yes... i want to be noticed, i want to be included and wanted and feel important and that i matter...yes i want to be told that i am beautiful..but i want it to be because i am me...and not what i can become..or who i can become...i want it to be because they mean it...and arent trying to make me feel better or something..i already know how i look..my look hasnt changed since i was kid for goodness sake...

im sorry if i have managed to disappoint anyone...


this is who i am

No comments: