Shaddup Already!
2006-07-10
Feeling Sort of Attractive
Wearing my pretty new beaded tank top makes me feel sort of attractive. I'm not sure why, but I could take a guess.Back when I was a teen and had a great body (but didn't even come close to knowing it), I got a lot of attention when I wore tank tops. Particularly from my sister--the tall, thin, pretty one that got compliments all the time about her poise. She had no breasts--I did, and do. Now she has breasts too, but mine were free.
I don't know what my issue is, but I never feel attractive. I almost always feel smart. I often feel funny. I know I am caring and compassionate. I believe in my honesty and my generosity of spirit. I enjoy the spirituality that I have spent years trying to figure out. But I never feel attractive.
It has always been this way. I don't know why. I can remember being a small child, about the age I was in the picture on my blog. I would look at my reflection in the mirror and wonder how anyone could be friends with such an ugly girl.
No one told me I was ugly, I wasn't horribly mistreated, but that insecurity was always there. Perhaps my absent, alcoholic father had something to do with it. Perhaps the abusive sister who was dealing with the demons of unmentioned molestation by beating on her submissive baby sister had something to do with it. Perhaps having a mother whose self esteem has always been tied into how much other people needed her--sadly, it still does to this day--had something to do with it. Perhaps it was in my nature to be self-critical to a fault.
I suppose it was a combination of all of those things.
When I hit my teen years, I looked back on my baby and childhood pictures and saw an adorable little girl. I wondered what happened over those growing up years to have such a negative effect on me. When I got to college, I scoffed at the boys who told me how cute I was. Certainly no one would be interested in such an ugly young woman, but when I was in high school, I was pretty cute. What happened?
Then I put on about 20 pounds and went away to college. I looked back on pictures of my years shortly after graduating high school and thought that girl was pretty cute. But now I was fat and ugly--for real. How could I not appreciate my cuteness when I had it? It was so fleeting.
Then came the surgeries and the 5 years of pain that restricted my movement and made it easier for the extreme weight gain to move in. I caught myself looking at a picture taken at UF--when I was supposedly fat and ugly. I wanted to be that Michelle again.
But now I was beginning to realize that I cannot see the physical beauty in myself while in the present. I thought it was simple--look in the mirror and realize that I'm not painful to look at.
But I can't do that. I don't think I have ever felt truly attractive.
I do sometimes feel sort of attractive and I enjoy that feeling. Why can't I hold on to it?
Tonight, I put on my pretty, beaded tank top, comfortable jeans and my new Happy Bunny watch
and went out for fondue and basked in my sort of attractiveness.
I know I'm doing things to improve myself--starting from the inside out. I know that. I just wish I could rush it along. I wish that, by the time I go back to work (in two weeks!), people would see that change.
But I know better. I know I'm going back to work and I'll be in that infancy stage of self acceptance again. It happens every year. Every year I take a baby tiny step forward and stop myself from backsliding all the way to the beginning. But I still feel insignificant and fat* and ugly.
I'll be damned if that is going to show on my face this year. So I'm going out right now, getting some make-up (I threw all my old stuff out) and I'm going to practice looking like I care about what I look like.
Maybe someday I'll fool my brain into believing that I'm the beautiful woman that I long to be. Only then, will I acheive true beauty.
And I'm worth it.
And I will keep telling myself I'm worth it until I believe it.
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*While I adore getting notes and comments from people, please do not post any diet advice. As having binge eating disorder it is a trigger for me. Thank you. You're beautiful.
