Thirty Days of Truth - Day Eight

One person who has made your life hell or treated you like shit.....

I'd planned on doing better here, promised I wasn't going to skip anymore days, but this one kinda threw me.  Am I saying that no one has been that "mean girl" to me?  That no one has treated me badly?  Oh no, quite the reverse actually, I'm stuck wondering who has caused me the MOST hell.  Who should be immortalized in the blogosphere for being a petty, jealous, infantile, selfish, mean spirited douchebag?

Would it be the group of kids who started the rumor that I was pregnant when I was sixteen and so naive I really didn't even know what sex was all about?

The principal who insisted I cheated on a test and made me take the whole class over again, who constantly rode me for every single little thing when there were only FIVE people in our graduating class?  The same woman who was consistently offering insults camouflaged in concern to me and my family?

Or maybe it was my BEST friend who stood by and pretended to sleep while I was raped?

The group of guys I worked with who had a $500 bet on who would get me to sleep with one of them first?

The owner of the shop where my Dad was electrocuted and died who played on the innocence and grief of me and my Mother to get out of paying us what his life was worth?

Maybe it was the human resources manager at the healthcare facility where I worked who was convinced I was mutilating myself and tried to have me committed?

Or the boss who still owes me almost $17,000 in back pay?

Maybe it's the pastor and his wife who repeatedly stabbed us in the back because of their petty jealousy?  The ones who caused my daughter to have an emotional breakdown?

Or the woman who accused me of trying to sleep with her 16 year old son because I was being a better mother to him than she could hope to be?

Ugh, I really didn't intent for this to come across as bitter because honestly?  None of them matter to me anymore at all.  Does the hurt still linger?  Mhm.  But.....I've put it behind me.  I hope anyway.  Sometimes I think I've put things behind me when in all honesty I've shoved them in the back of my mind and they come out to play when I least expect it.

What I was thinking about when I started this was something else entirely.  Look around in a bus station, a train station, an airport and what do you see?  Rarely is there anyone fighting.  More often than not, people are hugging and crying and saying their heartfelt hellos and goodbyes.  You see military families waiting impatiently for their soldier to get off that plane.  For the brother or sister or mother or father that's been gone too long to finally appear.  For the husband or wife or lover that you've missed more than you thought possible so you can feel their arms around you again.

When tragedy strikes, the cell lines jam with people checking on loved ones, hoping against hope that the person THEY love will pick up the phone and tell them everything's okay.

Go to the hospital and tell me what you see?  No one's fighting.  They're praying, hoping, pleading, rejoicing, sobbing, laughing, experience the gamut of emotions that have little to do with hatred.

I guess what I"m getting at is in the END, there's no room for hatred, or hard feelings.  There's only a certain number of days allotted to us all, and I've decided that I don't have the time or energy to waste on people who have decided they don't want or need to be in my life.   I haven't forgotten, and I'm still working on forgiving, but I'm no longer letting those people change my life.  I'm the only one who should be in charge of my life.

Beauty Through A Mirror

The face in my mirror has changed a lot over the years, and I'll be honest, a lot of days I get rather pissy about it.  I'm hardly 17 anymore, and my face shows that.  I've got some wrinkles, got a LOT of grey, and some extra weight hanging around too, but there is one thing that I've got now that I didn't have then.  

I'm content with who I am and for the most part with what I look like.

I got to wondering when that happened.  I remember being this skinny, awkward, shy teenager and I don't really remember the in-between.  Was it when I got married?  When I had a child?  When I discovered that I didn't have to work at a job where I was harassed?  Maybe when I realized that from time to time, cute young guys still look my way when I'm out and about?  

Self image has been talked about so much that I think we forget what it is.  The media talks about "self-image" but they SHOW us the same old pictures we've always seen.  The perfect, beautiful, tall, skinny people.  I know they're out there, but really?  How many of those people do you see walking around the mall or the grocery store.  How many individuals do you see on a day to day basis that make you stop and go "WOW".

Is it possible that even the words self and image have begun to characterize a certain look?  I was watching "Burn Notice" last night and I actually said aloud that I wish I could be as thin as Fiona.  My husband looked at me like I was crazy.  But why not?  I'd never have to worry about what to wear, whether my little muffin tops were peeking out of my jeans or if my boobs were trying to escape confinement.  I guess I realized then though that I don't desire to be that skinny because other people would like me, or find me attractive, but because......well my jeans would be easier to move around in.

If I ever were that skinny though?  I know I'd hate it.  Suddenly I'd go from worrying about a muffin top to worrying about keeping my pants up at all.  Try putting a pair of Levi's on a pencil and see if they stay up why don't you?

Anyway, my 18 year old daughter pipes in and says skinny isn't in anymore.  Guys like chubby.  Maybe I should wonder if she thinks I'd want to be skinny for the wrong reasons.  Hmph.  Hadn't thought of that, I'll have to talk to her about that.  I think though?  Guys have always preferred a little fluff on a woman.  Sure they have different preferences, but generally speaking, I'll go out on a limb with that.

Why is it then that a woman's body is a continual issue for her?  Is it a rule of the universe that we can't hope to be comfortable in our own skin until we're old enough to realize that there are other more important aspects of who we are?  Does the man of our dreams care if we're carrying an extra ten or twenty pounds if we can have an intelligent discussion with him about things other than makeup and shoes?

I'm lucky in that my husband tells me regularly how beautiful I am.  Of course, I add on the "to him" at the end, because well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  I'm not Yoda by any means, but I've given up on aging gracefully.  I've got a sledgehammer to fight it every step of the way.

The point to this little tirade though is this.  We find beauty in trees and flowers, in sunsets and animals all the time.  Is it so hard to find that same beauty in our mirror?  To look past what we conceive to be perfect to what is perfectly us?  Some of the most beautiful women in the world are far from perfect, but they've got that "something" that calls to us.  That "something" that makes them appealing.  Same for men.  There's a certain charisma that makes you beautiful and part of that charisma is confidence.  Some people might call it vanity, but I think vanity is something different.  I don't want to "hear" how beautiful you are, I want you to show me. Show me in the way you see the world, the way you see yourself in your own mirror.  Like love, charisma is that thing that is shown much better than told.  

Look in your own mirror and really pay attention.  Forget the wrinkles or zits, the stray eyebrow hair, the nose you got from your father, look into your own eyes and find the beauty that's been there all along, and then?  Share it with the world in the way you walk out the door and go about your day.