A friend from college took the picture below of me our senior year (I know, I look about 12, but I was actually 21) and she found it and sent it to me around 10 years ago. You tell me: is this girl fat and homely?
But it's not just from the vantage of 20 or 30 years later that I can say I was cute then. Somewhere along the way from 1984 to today, I embraced myself. (And before you ask, I have no magic secret to share on how. I'm sure 8 years of therapy helped.) But at some point, I realized that I like my face: as is, no makeup, just me. And I mean I like it NOW, a few wrinkles and all, not just as it was 30 years ago. I also like my hair, grey hairs and all. And I even like my body, including the oversized boobs I inherited from my grandmother Crook. (And truly, I'm lucky - I'm 5 foot 6; she was 4 foot 11 something at her absolute tallest, and hers were just as big as mine...) I would like to continue to lose weight for my health, but it's not about thinking I'm fat and ugly anymore.
I wish I could go back and tell my teenaged self that you don't have to look like a supermodel to be beautiful. And how did we let the media co-opt the word beautiful and use it for headlines like "50 Most Beautiful People!" As if there were a limited supply of beauty, and it's relative, so only the top 1% or something qualify? Hogwash. We are ALL beautiful one way or another: God doesn't make ugly. We just have to find a way to embrace our own unique beauty and find ways to let it shine.
Alas, I cannot go back and tell my teenaged self that, and I don't know if she could hear it if I did. But I'll settle for this: if you're reading this, you are beautiful. Own it, cultivate it, revel in it, embrace it.
I still sometimes see myself as an amalgam of the "bad" qualities (short Gallagher arms and fingers, bushy Crook hair and eyebrows), but I'm starting to see myself as an attractive person in spite of my perceived flaws... and the bosom that I inherited from you (and my great-grandmother!) certainly helps matters :)
ReplyDeleteLOL, one woman's bushy hair is another's thick, beautiful hair - I love your hair! As for the bosom, yeah. It seems unfair that it can pass through the male line... Still, look at it this way: we're curvy and beautiful, and if we had Gramma Crook's A cups, we'd be out of proportion!
DeleteYou look and are lovely, then and now :)
ReplyDeleteYou were always cute, and curvy, NOT fat. :)
ReplyDeleteI has the same reaction when I saw a few older photos of me, why did I think I was so homely? The fat feeling didn't really factor into later.
ReplyDeleteThis is one of the best posts I have read in a very long time. Lovely. My son takes great pride in his nerdiness, just like your daughter (read you sidebar profile).
ReplyDeleteThanks! Yeah, there's another thing I'd like to tell my teenaged self - take pride in being smart, being a nerd! I just LOVE that about my daughters: they know who they are, and aren't interesting in pretending to be something else just to "fit in." That is SO hard for middle and high schoolers to do, so I am immensely proud of both of them.
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