Falling For Beauty

(Warning: This got a bit more graphic and intense than I originally intended it... but for now I'm going to stick by it and post it.)

My new car is full of things that I have no idea what they're for. There are all sorts of secret compartments and little hideaways that I'm sure are meant to house something, but I can't quite figure them out. Nancy Drew would be so disappointed in me. My car also has a "satellite ready radio" with three months of free preview. I found this out all by myself when I turned it on and something actually came in. Out here, nothing comes in. At my house I'm in a literal dead-zone with no cell, television, or radio service. I think this means I'll be the only survivor should nuclear war break out... or the only casualty.

Anyway, I was thrilled to death when clear, crisp sounds emerged from my radio, and I was eager to explore the channels... and then very disappointed. I thought I only had three channels for the past week, until I hit a series of buttons (out of frustration) yesterday and found several more channels! Unfortunately they were all "talk" shows, and I managed to get stuck on one and couldn't figure out how to get it to change.

And then I started listening. I have no idea what channel I was on, and I found it slightly annoying (there was a woman on there who kept actually giggling now and then. If you are going to giggle, why be on the radio? Giggle-hour is something for preschoolers, don't you think?) But then they finally said something that caught my attention; it was about why men don't find their partners attractive anymore.

I'm sad to report that I perked right up immediately.

Oh Boy! Yes, tell me why I am not attractive anymore! I need to know what I am doing wrong, because I've apparently been doing it my whole life. It might be a genetic flaw on my part, but if not, sure - let me know! Hardly any dates, horrible, cheating, abusive boyfriends - those were the fun times! At least I found a good guy... but now they're saying that I'm yet again not attractive to him. Not really a shocker, but do tell.

Well, according to the voice emerging from my dash, it's not really MY fault! (I'm liking this guy more all the time!) In all seriousness, his points were rather simple:

1) With all the media out there shoving "perfect" specimens of women down your throat at every opportunity, men have become Judge Judy in the bedroom. Of course you can't measure up, who could?

2) Beauty, and what that really means, has changed. A woman throughout history used to be judged to be attractive by her voice, her scent, her heart, her thoughts, and her looks. Now it's just looks, or a 20% kind of world.

How many women just thought to themselves "Do you know what I would give to be considered attractive for my thoughts, my heart, my voice?" It's what I thought, with a rather wistful sigh. (Major Blinking, Flaming Hint, Men: if you can truly find her attractive for those things, you will be well on your way to winning her heart.)

I thought about those two points that were made for the rest of the evening. 200, 500, 5000 years ago, how many desirable naked women would a man have really seen in his lifetime? A handful, if that? How about even semi-naked women, since modesty was rather important back then (i.e. no mini-skirts, corsets on the outside, and hooker-heels)? And now? They see thousands upon thousands. They even have Photoshop to crop, shade, and perfect the woman into mythical stratospheres.

And it's all about the package. As I overheard a man once put it when talking about a porn magazine "They're the perfect women; shiny, perfectly proportioned the way I want them, and QUIET." Yeah, funny joke. ha, ha. But remember what used to be attractive about a woman? Her mind? Well, it seems to be a rather commonly held belief that it's a very unattractive thing now. How sad, considering in the reverse that most women find men with greater intellect incredibly attractive.

Now, before anyone starts screaming at me, I am certain this swings both ways. I feel that we women also have a lot of men thrown at us (sorry, just need a moment to savor that mental image...) and that women also judge unfairly. But, I don't think it's to the same magnitude. When we start seeing as many nude men in media as women, we'll talk. Oh, and when the media doesn't insist that men get better with age and women fade into dust...

I dug out an old picture of myself. This is me, at 17 (my senior picture, told you I'm a natural blond):
Pardon the folds, I've been trying to throw it away for years and my kids keep rescuing it and hiding it in their stash of treasures. Why would I want to throw it away? Because that is the portrait of a seriously ugly girl. Physically, she never measured up... taller than everyone else, and different. But personally? She was a very broken and lost person.

I didn't know who I was supposed to be. My household was broken with my mom just diagnosed with chronic progressive MS, my dad on probation at work and freaking out, and my brother who was just diagnosed as bipolar and on hardcore illegal drugs - punching holes in the wall and doing crazy things. I was sexually broken because of a few things that happened (some of you know what these things are) and very confused - to the point I ended up doing some dangerous and unforgivable things that I still regret by unfathomable measure to this day. My friends had abandoned me in the most cruel way imaginable, and I literally had people going out of their way to verbally assault me (like teachers at the high school.)

I was alone. Completely. I was terrified, and in shreds. The day before this picture was taken was one of the many days I lined up pills on the bathroom counter and thought about how it would be "so easy" while I played with a razor on my wrist, just to see myself bleed. I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday.

That's a very ugly human being. It doesn't matter that youth was on my side, nothing else was. I was a literal waste of space.

I'm 33, so if I do the math correctly, that was 16 years ago - a literal lifetime from that moment. I know who I am now. I may not like it all the time, and I may struggle with it frequently - but knowledge is power, and I am secure within it. I have a voice, and I can be damn loud if I need to be, even if I sometimes say the wrong things. I found my way back to caring about anything, and found many lines in the sand that I will or will not cross. I am powerful. I am not completely healed, but I am a long way from where I was then. I am not shreds of a human being now, I AM a human being - and that SHOULD be beautiful.

I see beauty in everyone now, especially on a physical level because of my aesthetic leanings (i.e. crazy artist lady.) I have NEVER met an ugly person in a physical sense, in my entire life. Beauty is in the lines, and the color, and the texture - it makes my toes curl at the very thought. But, I cannot find it within the mirror to see beauty there for myself. It is something I have never been able to do, and maybe I don't want to. Physically, I see someone who is just like general masses; neither more attractive or less - a break-even of attractiveness, with the potential for invisibility (something I wished for long and hard for years.)

However, internally I think I have something to offer. I think that while that 17 year old girl was incredibly ugly for who she was inside, I have bloomed where she wilted. I have passion that burns, thoughts that incite, and a level of caring for anyone who will let me that I never possessed then. I have a yearning for understanding, and a longing for reciprocal friendship paired with the knowledge that I can actually BE a friend now. When you are trying to work up the nerve to kill yourself, you can't be a friend. It's because I have something in myself to protect that I finally realize that I have something to offer as well. And isn't that what beauty is at it's heart? An offering? Not meant to be plucked and destroyed, but shared?

I know there are many who don't agree with my own assessment, and it sounds arrogant. But I don't mean it that way. I simply mean I am a better person than I was, a more valuable and worthy person than I was. I am not perfect, in fact I am so far from it that some days it is hard to even breath in a very literal sense because I feel so keenly how much I fall short. But a person is not all or nothing. I am not all, but I know that I am finally not "nothing".

I cannot be physically beautiful, not in the way the thousands of women have set the bar. I'm willing to bet even they cannot be. But even more - no one can maintain that. We age. And then what? What is left for us? To be traded in for a newer model? It happens. But in my own case, my newer model was worth a hell of a lot less than this older one sitting before you today. I'm willing to bet the case is the same with 99% of the women out there as well.

I don't know how to change the world, especially about the concept of beauty. But, I sincerely hope that people start to realize that others (both men and women) increase in value and beauty over time, and not the other way around.

And you? You should know that you're beautiful to me.