pretty

For as long as I know I have had body image issues.

Once, in the fifth grade, I tried out for the school Christmas play. I won the leading role. I was cast as Mrs. Santa Clause, the only character with a singing solo.

On the bus ride home, I noticed one of the neighbors glaring at me from across the seat. When I looked up she sneered, "I heard you are going to be Mrs. Santa Clause. They only gave you that part because you are fat."

And like that my shining moment of elementary school glory was ruined, tainted by the second grade neighbor from across the street.

"Doesn't that hurt your feelings?" she then asked. I responded in the only way I could to save any shred of pride. I told her that it didn't.

In reality, it cut like a knife.

Comments about weight hurt as much when you are in your twenties as when you are eleven. Only, adults are more clever. It usually comes in the form of a thin person offering advice that they don't have to take themselves.

I would like to inform them that the conversation concerning my weight is by invitation only and the guest list is at capacity. Instead, I quietly listen and quickly change the subject.

... and then there is D.

D has told me that I'm pretty for the past three years that I've known him. It usually happens when we are both doing something else. He will be doing homework and I will be reading a book on the other end of the couch. Suddenly, I will feel his eyes on me and look up to see his love sick puppy dog gaze. Then, he'll smile and say, "You're beautiful." And for the past three years, my response has been the same, "You're crazy," and then, "Or blind," I'll think.

For a while, I thought that he simply needed new glasses. I didn't want to deprive him of the gift of sight but I also worried that he would try on his new glasses, look at me, and then feel utter disappointment.

Instead, we had him fitted for new glasses and contacts and he looked up at me, trying on silly frames and said, "You're beautiful."

The next theory I decided was that he had come to know the beauty on the inside. That he now loved me for my personality so he was able to ignore the outer shell. But then I will have days when I am short tempered and grouchy and my inner beauty is not so pretty and he will still look at me and say, "You're beautiful."

So now, I'm starting to believe that the poor fool really does think I'm beautiful and that brings me a happiness that erases anything else.