I'm a mother of 3 precious boys who are on the autism spectrum. This is a fun record of my triumphs, my sorrows, my delights and my frustrations. A space borrowed on the net for me to vent, relieve stress and to be able to go back,look at my past and laugh at the things that at one time, gave me a run for my money. Laughter really is the best medicine.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm 30. I'm starting to get wrinkles and gray hair, gravity and child birth have had their tole too. I know that as the years go by it'll only increase. Daily I feel the pressure to look young and perfect. I have talked to or seen other female friends and family who feel the same pressure of looking flawlessly perfect. It causes insecurity, anxiety, stress, eating disorders and inner pain among other negative effects. Something I have felt increase in the past few years personally is fear. I now fear of not being "woman" enough, beautiful enough, attractive enough to keep a man. I can tell myself daily, a hundred times over that I am beautiful. I can hear it a hundred times and yet, the doubt lingers. The what if is there- what if they're just saying that, what if they secretly wished I looked that way, what if it's just a lie and I'm not pretty...what if. Why? Well, you see, images such as these led my first husbands to the point of not being able to love and cherish me in anyway.My ex decided that he needed to leave and get himself freed from such images if he were ever to become a good father and husband. He was so very enslaved.Words cannot express or describe the anguish and turmoil of wanting to be loved and seen as beautiful in your natural state but feeling you'll never be seen that way by others, especially men, because of what the media pushes and says is the only way to be. It ended up dissolving my marriage of 7 years. I was happily married, had 3 beautiful boys and all of it gone because of woman being airbrushed, tucked, stuffed, dyed, and whatever else has been thought up to distort a womans image for someones ideal.
MY questions is...who is that someone? Who in the world started saying that this is a way a woman should look or be and WHY in the world do we listen to them? Why do we let our men get away with thinking we should be that way. Why do we agree with them and practically kill ourselves in vain effort? Woman in other parts of the world such as Europe and even Hawaii in older days were desired plump, full figured and natural. However, it seems that we as a whole were able to see the beauty at that time because we weren't fed such fake images since our childhood. We weren't "taught" by what we saw to want the impossible.
Well guess what Hollywood... I say NO MORE! It's back to the good old days for me. I'm not going to conform. I'm not going to cut myself into pieces, stuff myself to your ideal, dye, primp, nip, tuck, twist or pull into your fantasy. I have flaws and I REFUSE to hide any of them because they're NOT flaws! I've earned every wrinkle, gray hair and stretch mark. It makes me who I am and I AM beautiful! Why would I want to erase the beauty of every smile I've had, tear I've shed, worry or concern I've felt, dye away years of experience, cover the stretch marks that honor me with memories of motherhood and change how unique I am (my eye color, lip shape, etc) by trying to conform to another's idea of what they think is beautiful? There should be no ideal! So stop the guilt and pressure to twist my natural form into an impossible image so that you can make a profit.EVERY woman IS beautiful! She has every right to feel that way!
You don't agree with me? Don't believe that you're beautiful? Go, look in the mirror. Can you see it? Maybe it's the way your eyes twinkle, or maybe it's your thick beautiful mane. Maybe it's the very wrinkles of time and wisdom and gray that make me look up to you knowing you've been there and may have great things to share. Maybe it's your smile that is so wonderfully contagious it makes others smile back. Maybe it's your hands and the talents that they have helped you develop. All of this beauty unseen even by ourselves because of an "ideal". Such a waste...
I knew a woman who didn't conform to those "ideals". Her name was Anna Jackson. The pictures I saw of her told of her beauty in her youth...thick long curly hair, beautiful bright eyes, long smooth legs...I remember looking into this woman's eyes as I helped her dress because she was now past 90 and too frail to help herself. I remember seeing her eyes now hazy by cataracts, her face weathered and wrinkled, her once long thick mane now short and thin and her shoulders permanently bent. Despite the "flaws" of age, all I really saw was such grace, wisdom, such humility and such regal beauty. Her eyes still sparkled and each wrinkle was a laugh or thought that she may of had. Her body and skin now stretched and marked, testifying of her sacrifice to birth 8 children and loosing 2 of them before their first birthday. Many many people from miles around would travel to see this woman at her now extreme age,bringing her gifts or flowers. Many were too poor and only had kisses and tears of gratitude to offer. I even witnessed a man, who's parents she had help many years earlier, drop to his knees before her and kiss her hands while thanking her, as tears flowed down his face. One would have thought she was royalty. She was, to them.They saw her beauty. They saw her lifes work. They honored her for it. When we walked into a restaurant or store, others would remark at how beautiful she was. She truly was beautiful. Bent and with a walker, she still walked like a queen and looked like one because of who she was and believed herself to be. That woman was my grandmother.
I, like my grandmother, when it's all said and done at the end of my life know that my hair will be thin and gray, my soft skin gone with the wrinkles of time and by body frail and bent. I won't be the young "beauty" I once was. I am now determined to strive for that lasting beauty my grandmother was able to develop and radiate in her old age. I say to the world...you want to see beauty? Then look at her. Look at those who have been through life and have come out shining. Look at those who are struggling and hurting but still smiling. Now, that is a beautiful thing to behold. Maybe beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. We as woman could change that. First, by the way we see ourselves.
The video above is a great reminder as of why we are perfect they way we are naturally and why we have the right to believe so.
