Beautiful

 

I took a trip down memory lane today; listening to old songs that spoke to my heart back when I was young.  Of course, I was like any other teenage girl, viewing the world through eyes of wonder, and comparing myself to all the other girls, movie stars, mothers, aunts, and never seeing who I really was. In all honesty, it was not until recently, that I did see myself as who I have become, who I was, and who the world views me as.  In all reality, I still may not have a grip on that. 

I was a tall, gangly girl, and from my point of view, my feet were too big.  Grandad complimented me on that and said I would never tip over.  Again, from my point of view, my legs were too long, but again, Grandad said I would never trip over things I stepped over.  I didn't have the creamy smooth skin and beautiful dark hair that many of my peers had; I was a curly red head with freckles.  

I attempted with all my might to attain the the attributes of what I considered beauty.  After nearly making myself bald when I tried to iron my hair straight with an iron from the stove, and multiplying my freckles from trying to "run" them together to create a tan, I finally gave up on that aspect of beauty, and began to starve myself, so that, in my mind, at least my body would match my legs and arms.  No matter what I did, I could not seem to fit myself to the image I had of what beauty was.  I wanted to be like all the other girls.  And the only reason that I wanted to be that way, was to be accepted.  


After years of self-deprivation, mutilation by hair dye and chemicals, torture by tight clothing and starvation, I finally gave it all up.  But I still didn't see who I was.  It was not until my minds eye was off of myself, that I finally began to see myself as God had created me. It happened quite by chance that I was going through boxes of photos from days long ago, and I found a picture of myself with my baby girl.  I was shocked at what I saw.  For the young woman I saw before me was beautiful.  But there was something more to her than met the eye.  She had a sort of wistful sadness about her that seemed to draw me back to that time, and showed me who I was then.  I realized how much of my life had been wasted trying to be someone I was not. 


Strangely, not but a few months later, I met up with one of my old school mates.  She was one of those glowing, dark haired beauty's that I was trying so hard to be when I was in high school.  And she recounted to me how she never felt like she fit in.  I was amazed at that, but had already begun to see that I was not alone in my quest to "fit in".  Before me stood one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen, and she had felt the same way.  


Somewhere, in those long years of self-torture, I had remembered sitting on the back porch with my Grandad and watching the sunset.  He pointed out to me the beautiful colors, the rise and fall of the clouds, the rays shining through the pink and orange of the sky.  And he also pointed out that the sunset we were seeing was totally different from all the others ones we had seen before, and there would never be another one like it.  True, there were similarities, because they were all made of the same substance.  But each one was hand-crafted by God, to give its' beauty in its' own time. 


We are each like a sunset.  None of us the same, though made of the same stuff.  All of us, created for our own moment of beauty, and all of us made beautiful in our own time.  I hope somewhere some young girl reads this and realizes that her view of herself may not be what she would like, but she is still a creation of God, and beautiful in her own time and season.  Because she truly is just that. Beautiful. 
Copyright © 2011 by Susan Linn-Gomez. All Rights Reserved.