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Beauty (and the insecurity beast)
A man said to me today, “Does your guy know how skinny and beautiful you are?”
Any other time and I would have been offended – I am uncomfortable receiving compliments – I have learned to say ‘Thank you” but – mostly I’m in knots inside not wanting to be noticed.
I’m not a ‘girly’ girl. I don’t wear heels, don’t need spas or salons or haircuts. I don’t dye my hair or buy purses or shoes. My favorite flower is the tiny grass daisy.
I really try not to call attention to myself. I don’t wear a lot of jewelry – will only wear silver-colored metals – no super short skirts or low-cut tops. I wear minimal make up, no colored polish on my fingernails and no busy patterns on my clothes.
Today, I responded in a moment of complete honesty. I surprised myself when I looked him in the eye and said, “You know, I’m scared I’m not enough.”
He looked at me and asked, “Does he know your heart? That you’re beautiful inside?”
“Yes. I think so.”
And I know that’s what counts. I’m not shallow. I’m not ignorant.
But if I’ve ever wanted to feel beautiful, to be looked upon through the eyes of someone special and seen as beautiful – it’s now.
The knots inside are of a new kind. Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder – and there are eyes I want to please.
And what if I’m not enough?
Grateful heart
I’ve been feeling insecure lately. I do not like that feeling!
It’s negative and fearful and something I do not want to be.
It took me a long time and a lot of hard work to get to a point of serenity in my life.
I am a creature of habit – yet, open to new experiences. Yes, I know, those contradict one another, but I adapt quickly to new ideas, routines and people.
So much so, that when a new routine suddenly changes – or I get a gut feeling that there has been a change, I’m left only to my imagination. That is a dangerous position to be in.
So the unknown … uncertainty … and my reaction to it – I have to look at that.
I have to look at that, because, I know that the only thing I can change is me – my attitude, my perception, my expectations. They’re all choices.
I am still choosing to be happy. So, I must address this facet of me that is making me feel unhappy.
Since I adopted a very real attitude of gratitude – I lost any desire for ‘more-than-enough’.
Material things aren’t shiny to me. Matters of the heart and soul are of far more value.
It stopped bothering me that I live in a tiny house – I was thankful for a home.
It stopped bothering me that I work so hard to provide for my son and I – the bills got paid.
It also stopped bothering me that I had no one to share my daily life with – I was grateful to have a life.
I count my blessings rather than fixate on what I don’t have.
At the same time, if I’m being honest – I secretly hoped one day for the meant-for-me person to show up.
Someone who cherished me.
Someone who made me feel safe and invited when it came to loving him.
But, I was not expecting it or looking for it.
Fairy tales can come true – I know this. I see other people in my life living them.
And they could happen to me too – if I stop reading so much into nothing.
If I could have faith and believe what those who know and love me the best say: “You deserve a happy ending.”
So I will leave the heart I guarded for so long unguarded, the heart that I kept under lock and key, open and grateful.
I will have faith and believe. And I will not allow fear and uncertainty to hold hope hostage.
Self. Indulge me.
Indulge me – and my foul mood.
You know, I read a friends blog who has Aspergers, and a common thread that I pull from her carefully woven words is that she is trying to process the world around her and her place in it. But what I feel from her words to a degree of envy, is that she knows herself.
I don’t know who I am anymore.
I feel, right now, like a bundle of contradictions – my muscles and my gut tight with the many facets of me that don’t play well with one another.
I despise liars, cannot stand to lie – yet lie to myself.
I cry at romantic movies, and a part of me yearns for the fairy tale ending, while the rest of me knows no one could possibly scale the walls I’ve built around me.
I abhor child abuse – and yet, just this afternoon I spat ugly words over the phone at my son after I perceived that he lied to me, when he was suddenly ‘not hungry’ after I asked him what he wanted from the shop for dinner rather than a drive thru. The sudden, let down, it’s-not-good-enough tone of his voice hit me where it hurt. I seethed. Thinking, ‘Ingrate’. And let him have it.
I might as well have slapped him, because I know how painful venomous words are.
I am impulsive and ugly. I am better alone.
I am always so desperate to please, then resentful that people take so much from me.
I am contradiction incarnate.
And now I am home – and the door to my sons room is closed, and the light is off. And we may as well be a thousand miles apart.
And we are.
I’m in my self-hatred and he is probably letting a nap take him after licking his wounds.
I won’t open his door.
I am stubborn. I am grateful for every day and painfully aware of how, without warning there can be no more days – and yet I squander them.
I don’t plan for the future.
I am content with ‘enough’, yet also settle.
I work hard – I give and I give all that I have. And I am tired. I am not well.
Somedays I only know what day it is because my pill-box reminds me.
I count my blessings, and neglect them.
I am 43 and responsible – and inside right now I just want to curl into the smallest ball I can muster and sob my soul right out of me.
I’ve never felt so alone, and yet have so many friends.
I say I’ll bare it all on my blog and yet, almost every post I find I edit in some way.
Well not this one.
