Is Beauty Really Only Skin Deep?

When we are in our early twenties, we are beautiful. Our bodies are slim and svelte, and our minds are untarnished by life's hard lessons. At least that was true for me. Sadly, I didn't even realize what I had.

Several months ago, I decided to do some organizing around the house (with the help of Tonks, 5 and Phineas, 3...everyone knows that you can't clean out a closet without the help of your cats) and came across 2 boxes of pictures that screamed "organize me!!!". So I did. In these boxes were hundreds of pictures that I had collected over the years. Some had been given to me, some I took, and some were generations old family photos that somehow landed in my unorganized hands. I proceeded to create new photo albums and chronicled my life.

The reoccurring theme throughout organizing these photos was "did I really look like that?". Compared to how I look now, I was a bit shocked. Now, don't get me wrong...I'm not an unattractive woman...I'm just not 20 anymore. My point is that every woman in the world (and every man too) deserves to believe that she, or he, is beautiful. Because there is a difference between inside and out with respect to beauty, for the sake of this post we're going to stick with the outside one today. I have no doubt that at some point in the future I will touch on the inside beauty topic.

So, why do I believe that every person ought to believe that they are beautiful? Simple. Because they are. Just being alive means that you are a human...a mystical, carbon-based life form, with many complex systems and the ability to reason. If you're lucky, you even have opposable thumbs. We have to admit that life is fascinating. Our reactions to life seem to preoccupy us to the fullest at times.

This is my latest reaction to the curve ball that life just threw. Did I really look like that? Could I have possibly been that pretty? I heard all my life that I had pretty eyes, but for the most part grew up believing that, I was at best, an average looking girl. I'm not saying that I thought I should have been conceited or anything, I just realized that I never got to appreciate the inherent beauty that all of us possess early in life.

I have lived my life on both sides of the fat fence. I have been very overweight, and very underweight, and sometimes at the right weight. Does junk in the trunk constitute ugly? I don't think so. If we dug into the inner beauty part, there would be issue, but since we aren't going there, I'm not going to breach it. Now that I'm nearly 44 years old, I can honestly say that I think I'm an attractive woman...but I do have some junk in the trunk. Am I vain for thinking that I'm not ugly for this? Absolutely not!! At my age, and with what my life has endured, I deserve to think that I'm extremely beautiful...simply because I made it this far! And even in spite of the fact that my best guy is my boy Phineas.

Beauty, in my opinion, is not just skin deep. Beauty is the sum of all parts: inner, outer, emotional, etc. Beauty is something we create in our own minds. Perhaps a painting that I love you think is a big ol' mess. I think one advantage I had with not knowing how pretty I was at 20 - I didn't base my relationship choices on physical looks and expected the same in return (OH, I can feel another post coming on with that sentiment).

I made a lot of choices based on the belief that I wasn't anything more than average, when it should have been the opposite. At 20, I had the world at my door, beckoning me to hop on and ride. Had I been a bit more attentive to the details, I might have had a different path of self-worth. And then another curve ball gets tossed...more than 20 years later I'm forced to hop back on the world and ride. Just that this time I'm smarter, stronger, and much better equipped for the curve balls.

Phineas and Tonks send their best...both have sniffed the computer screen and provided approval of the message.