We’re All Effing Beautiful…

The other night I was watching TV with my roomie (ok, over two weeks ago…I don’t watch a lot of TV). Jennifer Garner popped up on the screen. My roomie commented that she didn’t think that she was that pretty. I disagreed and said that I liked that the American ’ideal’ has appeared to embrace her and ’decide’ she is beautiful. I mean, why not? She has a great body, cute dimples, she’s always smiling, and most of all she seems like a genuinely good person. Then my roomie agreed, true, she is beautiful.

So, years ago I wrote an insanely long paper for school about beauty in the US…how models used to be size eights, but at the time (in 1996) had shrunk to a size two. At the time, I was a muscular size ten and pissed. Now I AM a skinny size 4, and still pissed. Why are we still so stuck on these ideas that women all need to be the same mold of beauty, and men for that matter?

Granted, in the dating world, you have to be attracted to anyone you may want to date…so let’s look past that for now shall we and just focus on some other thoughts…for me, I’m looking for ‘perfect for me’…not perfect for the world…which means, their insides better damn well be loving and caring as all hell. Which may explain why I was completely comfortable spending five plus years of my life with a guy who was only 5’7”…and anyone who knows who I am speaking of may like to know that he continues to be beautiful, is married with a lovely little daughter and runs a Domestic Violence Shelter in Moab, Utah.

Why is it that every time Queen Latifah gets interviewed they wax on about her big beautiful body. Why can’t we let that go and just agree that she is a beautiful person inside and out, big not included?

I just know I have met some drop dead gorgeous women and men in my life who were the ugliest assholes on the inside. It made the perfect smile seem evil, the pretty eyes seem manipulative, the muscular arms an excuse for them to be controlling and bullying to others.

Case in point. One of my best guys loves to go to Henry’s to ogle the girls. Whenever we go, I challenge him to talk to them, go say hi, buy them a drink. He never does. He mentions that they snub him when he smiles at them, seem really uptight, or seem above everybody else in the bar. Granted, some of these chicks are gorgeous inside and out too, but he’s figured out the girls at Blitz Ladd seem more smiley, down to earth, less concerned with pounds of makeup, etc, etc…but he still won’t talk to them, but that’s a different story.

And, as I write this, I just returned from the gym because I want to be in awesome shape (ok, and it makes me feel better, but it's definitely vanity driven as well), I wear makeup most days and LOVE makeup actually. I buy $150 jeans to make my ass look cuter. Damn right I will get as adorable as I can for First Thursday this week. So honestly, I just feed into the problem I suppose…and maybe that makes me a hypocrite…but shit, at least I feel like I am beautiful…almost all the time…regardless of what anyone else thinks.

I guess my point is that you should never assume that you aren’t beautiful. Because I’m sure you are and you just don’t know it.  Embrace parts of you that are unconventional to society's eye.  And if you’re beautiful on the inside too, well, that one slightly imperfect tooth, that graying hair, that bridge of your nose that annoys the piss out of you, or the feet you think are slightly too big, the chest you think is too small, the ears that seem too imperfect… well, they’re are probably quite endearing to friends, lovers, and even your family...and make you all the more beautiful. I mean, the more I get to know certain people, the more I love certain features about them…mostly because they are simply amazing people.

Just a thought…I’ll stop rambling now and offer up some songs:  I Run to You by Lady Antebellum, You and Me by DMB, and listen to the band Stars. Saw them recently in concert and was literally floored.