Perfection is overrated

Bear with me a moment; I've had this whole essay going in my head while I was getting ready for bed, and at last it became clear that I was going to have to write it down or face listening to it whirl while I tried to sleep.

The trouble is, I've the urge to start with where I ended up, rather than begin at the beginning.

It began with a conversation I had over IM this afternoon. It wasn't all that different from hundreds or thousands of conversations taking place all over the world, I imagine. Two women were talking about feeling self-conscious about aspects of their bodies.

In this case, it happened to be two rather strong-minded, unsuperficial, relatively confident, self-assured, fully adult women who on the whole like themselves quite well.

But we'd both been having moments lately where we look in the mirror and are not pleased. In my own case, I think it stems from external circumstances that have caused me to feel a bit like I did when I was a very unself-confident teen. The kinds of things one likes to think one has grown out of at the ripe old age of my ripe old age.

Anyway, I find myself missing being told nice things about my physical self. Boywich used to tell me I was beautiful - or at least I think he did. In any case, he managed to make me feel that he felt I was.

I know in some sense that it came from him loving me. That when he looked at me, he wasn't just seeing my packaging but also the person in there, whom he found beautiful and worthy of love. So it was easy for him to say it. Or to bring me lots of roses. Or both.

You can't have that with someone who doesn't know you, and doesn't really want to know you any better than they do. I guess it's the latter part that does more than simply not make me feel beautiful - it makes me feel unbeautiful. Not wanting to know me, not wanting, in point of fact, to admit to being involved with me, made me feel quite ugly. (Not to mention angry)

And no matter how much I tell myself it doesn't matter, and that I can consider myself beautiful anyway, I've lost a little bit of my shine. Just for a little while, I think. But it's definitely there, the dull spot.

That scar on my stomach looks more noticeable than it used to. I feel like I look pregnant about half of the month. My face looks heavy and old. I bet no one sees this but me. I bet most of it isn't true (I do in fact bloat to an amazing degree of late, and there's no getting around that. The clingy dresses are taking some time off).

It's a curse that someone else's opinion should matter more than my own. It's a curse I've fought extremely hard against, and will probably have to keep fighting forever.