fickle with a capital *F*

03Dec08

   

originally uploaded by A.p.K.
(more appropriate to this post would be a self-portrait, but you’re just going to have to deal with the glamor shot of a flower dripping with rain…phhht.)

How is it that, with my wondrous intellect, my eclectic background, my liberal feminist upbringing, I am still dancing this dance? One day, I am feeling radiant, poised and turning heads as I walk down the street, the next I feel monstrous, unattractive to the nth degree.

On the good days, I have to wonder…could it be my fashion sense? My mona lisa smile? Maybe it’s my alluring aura, all intrigue and sensuality.

Yeah, right. The moment I let myself think it, I discredit it.

They’re looking at my ill-fitting unfashionable clothes, my mismatched style. I’m probably scowling, or at least deep in wrinkle-causing thought. Maybe I smell? Am I a poster-child of questionable hygiene, a warning to the pretty faces all around me?

I know I’m about 30 pounds overweight right now, I can’t stand to see photos of me, and even when comparing myself (shush – you do it too, and you know it) to other women, I’m aware of how warped my assessment is. I know the nasty-skinny girls when I see them, I find them unattractive but still I envy them. I know the morbidly obese girl is a completely different shape than I am, a different degree of unhealthy, but when I look in the mirror that’s how I see myself: big.

Blah.

(Oh, but you’re supposed to love yourself for who you are! Acceptance is the path to happiness! You’re so much more than your body – you know better, you’re beautiful no matter what!)

And yet there are those days when I wake up feeling – contentedly – whole. I feel good wearing the things I might usually avoid, I can’t help flirting with my reflection in the mirror, and I feel beautiful no matter whose company I keep. I am confident, I am attractive, and as long as I don’t fall into that trap of comparison, I maintain an overly healthy sense of self-esteem.

(Oh…look…that holiday TV special is about to come on…the one with the grotesquely beautiful women strutting down a catwalk in their underwear…bouncing where they are supposed to, firm and supple everywhere else…)

Guess I answered my own question – I’m dancing this dance because I am educated and intelligent, I am attractive in my confidence and humanity, but I am never far from a different definition of beauty, and the mainstream majority’s flashy campaign can very quickly and efficiently drown out my positive sense of self.

How anyone raises daughters who are strong, independent, and confident, in a world that establishes value in units purely aesthetic, is beyond me. Cheers to my mother, for giving me the tools to at least maintain this side of sane…

(…and just like that, I feel beautiful again…)

Filed under: :: notes on being human ::, photography   |  3 Comments