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I will never be beautiful

I will never be beautiful.

I’m not saying this because I want or need reassurance. It’s the knee jerk reaction, and I understand that, when someone sounds like they’re feeling down about themselves. But I’m not feeling down about myself, and I don’t think reassurance really works, for all its good intentions.

I’ve spent my entire life being told by others that I look okay, that I’m pretty, that I’m beautiful. It doesn’t matter how many times I hear it, it feels like a well-meaning lie. I don’t feel beautiful; I don’t have the necessary magic to look in a mirror and see myself as anything but the sum of my flaws. I don’t think you can convince someone that they are beautiful, or smart, or talented, if they truly don’t believe it themselves. I hear that I’m beautiful when I feel ugly. I hear that I’m beautiful when I don’t even look like myself any more.

There’s something wrong with me, or there’s something wrong with that word.

Some people want to redefine beautiful and I say, good for you, do it. But what I want is to be free of the tyranny of that goddamn word. Beautiful is nothing but a series of endlessly moving goal posts. It’s the unattainable, and people are ruthlessly mocked for not being able to attain it.

Rachael Author Photo 2

Beautiful has murdered countless women and men since its invention. We starve ourselves while surrounded by food, break our own bones, destroy our muscles and tendons, die from infections caused by this and that cosmetic tweak. At least when people die for love, they get immortalized in odes. Being disfigured for beauty just invites more mockery, for being superficial, for trying to please people who will never be pleased. It’s a no-win game.

And why should the fuckability rating complete strangers put on me have any grip on my soul? That isn’t what moves me.
No matter what I look like, I’m still me. Is there anything more pointless than trying to hammer myself into a foreign shape for the benefit of a word? Better to try to use whatever art I have in my soul to try to get the outside to match the inside so I can finally be content.I’ve cried more tears over beautiful and the way it’s twisted me up than I have over all of my dead relatives combined, and I feel fucking ashamed to admit that. I’ve spent years wondering why I can’t find a dress that doesn’t make me feel shakingly stupid when I would have better spent the time and energy trying to figure out who the hell I am.

I will never be beautiful.

I will never be beautiful.

But I will always be me.

9 replies on “I will never be beautiful”

*applause* absolutely beautiful =)

as someone else who’ll never be beautiful, and stopped trying 15 years ago, and instead focused on stuff she can do, i whole-heatedly commend you =)

that said, you are beautiful =)

(btw, you wanna read something that’s totally opposite what you posted above, that will make your head assplode with stupidity: http://www.salon.com/2013/07/02/my_year_of_modesty/)

The personality and the soul is so little valued in comparison to the endless discussions of beauty, I agree with you a 100% on that.
I do however believe that when we, others or even you, about others you like or love, see beauty, us people who *do* value soul and personality and all that, when we see it and like it, *that’s* when we see beauty.
I do fully know that not all people are like this. It’s actually proven well in society that concept of beauty is completely fucked. But I think it’s good to remember that when some people say you’re beautiful, they do see *you*. It’s their way of saying that you are visible to their eye and memorable and the sum of all that is something great.

Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder and I remarked that you are beautiful in that picture you posted and that I just love, love your hairstyle and color. I have seen you sometimes in the past where I still love you but you did not exactly strike me as beautiful at that moment, but when I saw you other times I felt differently. When I saw that picture, to me you looked beautiful. Beauty is composed of many things and they are not the same to everyone.
Physical looks make up a large part of what beauty means to most people, and also there is a smile and that inner glow, which you had in that picture as well. I know from where you come with the idea you are not beautiful because I too have never thought I was, even though many people through my life have told me I was at different times. I think bottom line is … if you really believe you
are physically beautiful….I probably would be more worried that you were a real narcicistic (sp) person and that’s simply not you,
nor I…and that’s a good thing. You should not really be worrying
about it and it sounds like you have decided to get “over” it….and
that’s a good thing.

Love you,
Aunt Mary Ellen

Smarts, character, compassion, love – they all last a helluva lot longer than beauty. And add considerably more value to the world, as well.

Characteristics, by the way, that you have in abundance.

Wow. Pretty amazing post. And, one that I completely can relate to. I say this sentence all the time — “I’ve spent my entire life being told by others that I look okay, that I’m pretty, that I’m beautiful. It doesn’t matter how many times I hear it, it feels like a well-meaning lie.”

Tyranny, indeed. It’s how I’ve felt for many years now, and it is SO tedious to be held to a standard that is completely subjective and impossible to achieve. My appearance is what it is, and if it isn’t pleasing to someone, it isn’t my problem.

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