Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Beautiful

I'm sure a lot of people have already seen this, as timely things do, it's made it's way across my Facebook and Twitter feeds a few times since it went online.  But I need to post it here, mostly as a reminder to myself - the ending - YOU ARE MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN YOU THINK.



A few weeks ago I had dinner with my friends Rachel and Haley.  Librarians.  Dear friends, warm hearts, hilarious and crazy and both beautiful.  Like heads turn beautiful.  In fact, with both of them, when I met them my first impression was that we would never be friends, because they were so beautiful.  A reverse mean girl.  They were too pretty to deign to even look my way.  That night, we had a long and drawn out meal, celebrating an upcoming wedding, a weekend away together, with an incredibly attentive waiter.  I complained to Matt about this at one point, casually throwing off that "waiters are always annoyingly flirty when we're out because they're both so beautiful."

So many things wrong with that statement.  Some people are just extroverts.  Certainly those who go into the service industry.  Nice doesn't always mean flirting.  But what stopped me in my tracks was when my dear husband quietly said to me, "I'm sad that you don't think you're beautiful too."

I don't.  True fact.  It's burned in my brain the day in college my then boyfriend told me that I was the "cutest" girl in the sorority.  (Thanks Ross, you jackass.)  I'm the funny one.  Sometimes I'm the smart one.  I don't remember anyone ever telling me I was beautiful.  This is not me trolling for compliments.  It's just a fact.  If I look back to  that night, if you ask me if the waiter was flirting with me as well, I'd tell you "no, he was laughing with me."  Because I'm the fat funny one. 

So this video has brought me to tears.  Why do we as women do this to ourselves?  You, right now - what is your best feature?  Yes you.  Because I know for a fact that if you emailed me, I could tell you.  Your porcelain skin. Your expressive eyes. The way your mouth is shaped when you're determined.  Your amazing curly hair.  Dude, your boobs.  All parts of you, my friends, that I envy. 

But me?  I'm good at making people laugh. 

2 comments:

  1. Could have written this myself. My 5 year old has no problem saying she's beautiful. When do we lose that? More importantly, why?

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  2. This is so true - I can easily tell you something beautiful about all of my friends (your smile!) and I'm sure many of them don't see these things about themselves. This reminds me of my favorite Post Secret, which I had as my screen saver for a while until I got embarrassed when someone saw it: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_a7jkcMVp5Vg/SDirWip0-YI/AAAAAAAAFAY/KAj0Zrr0xUM/s1600-h/okay.jpg

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