ishyface | On being beautiful. (Reply)

When I was little I didn't think about being beautiful. I think a lot of kids just let that stuff go by- not so much anymore, maybe. I know when my little sister was eight years old she already hated her body enough that every day she'd run up and down the stairs to try and lose weight. But I didn't. I hoped, vaguely, that I was "pretty," although I didn't know exactly what the word meant, and sometimes my mother told me I was, and I'd smile and go back to watching cartoons and reading The Phantom Tollbooth.

Being beautiful started to matter all of a sudden when I reached sixth grade. Of course, this was around the same time that puberty smacked the unlucky majority of us in the face like a sledgehammer. I started to duck my head to avoid mirrors, because I didn't like to look at myself. (In retrospect, possibly cutting my own bangs was not the smartest idea in the world.) I didn't look much worse than the usual victim of hormone fluctuations- greasy, overweight, pimples- but I did look worse enough for people to pick up on it and, kindly enough, tell me I was ugly.

I kept my nose in my books and my middle fingers up and told myself that it didn't matter. I didn't need to be beautiful.

And it was okay, for the most part. I was friends with boys who did not tell each other that they were pretty or ugly, and I wore big sweaters and let my hair grow long and fall into my face. One of the boys, my best friend, was into me, but made it explicitly clear that that was in spite of my looks. My mother dropped hints that maybe you should lose some weight, dear, and I ignored her. My dad outright told me that I was a fat cow, and I flipped him off. When I think back to my "ugly" period, it was kind of punk. I knew that I wasn't beautiful, and even if I gave a shit, I didn't act like it.

Things changed slowly, in waves. People started dating and kissing and thinking about sex, although most of us weren't having it. I fell in love with a girl one day who liked to tangle her fingers in my hair. That was the first time I ever remember being... appreciated in that way, and when she untucked my hair from behind my ears and let it fall in front of my face I saw a thousand different colours in the strands, bronze and copper and gold and the dark glow of cherrywood. It was startling, as though for a minute I was seeing myself the way she saw me.

I looked in the mirror one night after she left, and for once I didn't avert my eyes or flick off the light or mutter something disparaging to myself. I just looked.

And things changed, and then changed again, and when I got to high school I cut off all my hair. I could see my face clearly for the first time in years, and I didn't like it much.

There was a girl in high school who was very bad for me. The first time I kissed her she ran her fingers along my back, cold and clammy and smelling just strange enough to make me nervous and afraid. We weren't together for very long, but while she had her mark on me I ducked away from my reflection again. She was not interested in anything above my neck or below my knees, and for a while I hated the parts of myself that she liked. My back. My lips. My waist. My breasts. I imagined myself as a sexless mannequin, censored even in my own mind. I didn't want to identify with the things she had claimed as her own.

I didn't think I was beautiful, but after a while I figured out that someone else did. And that someone else turned into three years of being told I was beautiful and never quite believing it.

An actress I quite like once said that people equate feeling alive and good and vital with feeling fuckable. I think that's true, and I'm not sure how I feel about that being true. I remember looking at myself in the mirror after I lost my virginity, wondering if I looked any different. I did, I thought, but then after a minute I didn't, and then I did again.

But change kept coming. And even though I wasn't sure I believed another person telling me I was beautiful, I started looking at myself and saying, Hmm. I remember looking at myself and looking for some trace of myself in the mishmash of inherited features. I found my mother, and my father, and bits of my grandparents and aunts and uncles. I even saw my cousins now and again, flickering at the corners of my mouth or hovering in the knit of my brows.

And then, one day, I saw myself. And I liked it. It was a simple thing, looking in the mirror and liking it, but it was new, and it shocked me. I still feel that shock when I look in the mirror and don't want to turn away. I think the biggest surprise is that I'm looking at myself as myself, not as someone else, and liking what I see anyway.

There are parts of myself I've never liked. My ears, for example- they stick out too much- or my chin- it looks too big- or my nose- it's turned up like a pug's. I used to hate my smile so much I'd cover it up with my hand, remembering the time years ago when a boy told me my teeth were too big. I've focused on those parts of myself for so long I forgot about the parts of myself I like. I like my mouth- crooked, soft, a little pert. I like my eyes, no particular colour and set wide and deep. I like the way my neck curves into my back, and the strange pale colour of my forearms.