Nov 02 2008
I Wrote This?
My mom is the quintessential pack-rat, especially when it comes to sentimental stuff like the macaroni and cheese art that my brother, sister, or I produced in grade school. Needless to say the woman has copies of everything I have ever written, and shown her, including an essay I wrote during my first year of college for an English class. The teacher called it abrasive, clear but edgy - I find it astounding that I wrote this short essay, especially when you consider that I was at the height of my bulimic behavior when I wrote it.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but are the eyes of potential beholders clouded by a mass ideal of what beauty should be? Beauty is portrayed as perfection. Perfect hair, smile, body, a size two, no fat. Completely and utterly unattainable. People, women usually, spend thousands of dollars on cosmetics, clothing, gym memberships, all in order to achieve this ideal image. Who decided this is what beauty should be anyway? And why did society, as a whole, let them decide this? People need to move beyond beauty as perfection. It is an impossible standard that sets most people up for failure. Idols need to stop being made of the Barbie doll look-a-likes and start being made of the less than perfect; the truly beautiful. Beauty is in everyone - from the knobby-kneed twelve-year-old to the wrinkled and gray grandmother. It comes in all colors, all shapes, all sizes. It is not limited to the few and the lucky. Beauty cannot be bought, sold, or given away. It is something we are all born with. It is something that cannot be tamed or changed. Our beauty is unique to each of us; no two people are beautiful for the same reasons. Beauty is not perfection - it is found in our imperfections.
I believed that once…I can’t wait to believe that again.
Yep I keep everything that means something to me! You are a great writer and a awesome daughter so they were worth saving. Now you wrote that so post it around your house and remember that it is so true!!!!!