Eye of the Beholder



 

 

I took this picture on a downtown Birmingham street.  I am obsessed whenever I see this; I must have a picture of it.

 

Why am I obsessed with it?

 

Because it took me so long to be able to define "beautiful."

 

I have struggled my entire adult life with how I look; and from what I can remember it goes all the way back to the fourth grade.  Why is the boy that I like paying attention to that girl with the beautiful blonde hair and perfect nose and not me at all?  Ever since I can remember, I've compared myself with pretty much everyone I've met.  I was never satisfied with who I was or what I looked like.

 

So what did I do?  I became this little shell of a girl that hid behind her books and just begged to blend in.  Sitting in the back of glass, not raising my hand, not ever drawing attention to myself.   I remember being in high school and being in such a funk because my younger sister was going out on dates, and I had never even been asked.  I would sit in my room and just cry thinking about how ugly I was.

 

It wasn't until I got to college where I finally decided to stop caring.  Conveniently when that happened, I had my first serious boyfriend, Joseph, who told me I was so beautiful that he couldn't even believe I was interested in him.  And I know that sounds like I base my entire opinion of myself from what one dumb college freshman boy said to me on a first date, but it wasn't like that.

 

After he told me that, I honestly stopped caring so much about what other people thought of how I looked.  I stopped putting myself down every time I looked in the mirror, because honestly what was the point?  Not everyone in the world is going to think you're pretty, and there's really not a whole lot you can do about that.

 

Except tell someone once a day that they're beautiful.  Don't put people down, because seriously, what's the point?

 

And since I honestly don't care, I will share the most embarrassing picture of me probably known to man.

 



If you can find a more humiliating picture of yourself, wait...I don't know if there could be one!