Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Biscuit

“Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.”  -John Ruskin

               

                As a child I had no time for beauty.  If I had known John Ruskin I may have offered him a filthy handed high five as I ran giggling for the woods.   Beauty was as useful as a unicycle without the seat…confusing and painful to conquer.  It required dresses and tight fitting shoes.  It required baths and sleeping with rollers.  It required clean hands and brushed hair.  And then once you obtained this state of physical attractiveness you had to actually focus to maintain it.  You had to smile and sit still.  You had to watch as all the boys ran outside and played ball.  You had to play nicely with the other girls as they set up “house” or “wedding.”  The whole idea was absurd to me.  I didn’t easily fit in.  While most girls played “house” I played “homeless person.”  While most girls played “wedding” I played “post apocalyptic survival,” and having brushed hair or a dress didn’t help your chances in either of those games.

                My life revolved very little around how I looked.  My wardrobe mostly consisted of my brother’s passed down clothes.  My hair was usually a stringy tangled mess, and although it’s embarrassing to admit now, I managed to go an entire summer without bathing or brushing my teeth.  I privately mocked girls who put actual energy in to how they looked, because I felt beauty was not the key to life.  Living was. 

                As I entered my teenage years, however, beauty began to change for me.  I began to feel self conscious about my previous complete disregard for physical beauty and for a few years I went in the complete opposite direction.  I felt more like a line out of one of Chuck Palahnuik’s books:

“If I can’t be beautiful, I want to be invisible.” -Chuck Palahnuik

               

                I spent two and a half hours getting ready for school each morning.  I had to wear the perfect clothes.  I had to have the perfect makeup.  I had to have the perfect hair.  I made sure there was enough time in the morning to run to my friend/neighbor’s house so we could compare ensembles before heading out for the day.  It was what I call my vain period.  It wasn’t a good day unless I felt beautiful, and beauty required many reassuring looks in the mirror to make sure nothing was out of place. 

                I am not saying the two are connected, but this was also the time period where I had the most friends in my life.  I was young.  I was beautiful.  I was liked.  I believed this was all I needed in the world, and I forgot about that happy little girl who didn’t care what others thought. 

Luckily, however, life decided to teach me a very valuable lesson packaged as a spider bite; a spider bite that would cause massive swelling of my body, bruising, weight gain and large red hives randomly for the next two years of my life.  Suddenly almost all of the people who I thought were my friends were not.  They were making fun of me and attacking me if they weren’t ignoring me, and I couldn’t understand what had happened.  I was so infuriated, because I was the same exact person.  The only things that changed were superficial qualities that didn’t matter. 

At first I begged to look normal again, but as I examined the changes in my relationships and the pain of my condition worsened I begged for something else.  I begged for my life in exchange for my looks.  I wanted to make a deal that I would carry the hives for the rest of my life as long as I could live again.  I felt that no matter what I was going through I was still a beautiful person and anyone who didn’t agree could go to hell.  My deal was never accepted.  Instead, life led me to a cure and I regained my normal appearance and my life.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.” -Miss Piggy

                It is with Miss Piggy’s words in mind that I have lived ever since.  I am exactly who I am, and anyone who can’t appreciate that does not get to share in my life.  I wear what is comfortable.  I shave my head if I am tired of my hair.  More often than not I leave my makeup under the bathroom sink instead of on my face.  Certainly I deal with a normal amount of insecurities and I would be lying to say I didn’t, but the point is that I have learned to mostly live comfortably in my own skin.  I’d even go so far as to say it isn’t because I feel I am beautiful, but instead it is what creates my brand of beauty.

                So many people say, “You’re the only person who could pull off a shaved head.”  I completely disagree with this statement.  I honestly feel that anyone would look great with a shaved head, if they would feel comfortable with it.  What separates me from others is that I honestly do not care if I have hair or what others make of my lack of hair.  I don’t feel my hair can make or break how beautiful I am, just as my outfit can’t or my makeup.  As long as I feel comfortable and confident, people will see me as beautiful.  As soon as I start to question those things, I feel the world questions it with me.

                I’m not suggesting that every woman stop caring about clothes, makeup or hair.  I’m just saying it is what has worked for me.  Other women get confidence out of those things and if so, then they are also the source of their beauty just as the lack of them is the source of mine.  Anything that can make a woman feel comfortable in her skin is a wonderful thing. 

The trouble I am running into is that I am losing that confidence once again.  As I watch my appearance change in the name of cancer I am reminded of the quote:

“No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.” –Oscar Wilde

It isn’t the same as when I was a teenager.  I feel I am missing more than a good hair day or the perfect outfit, but even with that thought I feel I am fooling myself.  All of my concerns are still residing on the same sliding scale of outward appearances, so what does it matter how far down on the scale they are?  Instead of being self conscious about my makeup, I am nervous about how much my skin is drying and breaking out.  Instead of being worried about my hair (which is nonexistent at this point anyways) I am scared of losing my fingernails and toenails.   Instead of thinking about my clothes I am always aware of the fact that I no longer have breasts and that even if I decide to go on the long, painful and incredibly expensive journey of reconstruction, it is something I am not eligible for until almost a year from now.  Which brings me to the fact that, yes, as a matter of fact, I actually am thinking about my clothes.  I lied before.  How can I not be thinking about them when they all fit so differently now?  Suddenly I wish my clothes were a lot more girly and prettier.  I think somehow this will make up for my lack of a figure.

 Every day has become a battle to look in the mirror and find peace in what I see.  I find myself making excuses and reminding people that I look differently before they see me.  Is it so they will be prepared or so that I will be prepared for the look I’m already assuming will be in their eyes?  It’s the same look I see in my eyes every morning as I’m getting ready.  A look of loss.  A look of illness.  A look of discomfort.  A look of insecurity. 

I am not counting this as a permanent change in my perception of my physical self.  To be fair I am only eleven days out of surgery, and each day has become slightly easier than the last.  But I also know I have five more months of appearance changing treatments ahead of me.  What do those months bring for my self image?  Will I learn to accept the characteristics I find so trying?  Will I obtain natural peace or will it be one I have to fight for everyday when I look in the mirror?  Would a new wardrobe offer me comfort?  Will I opt for months of pain and money to have back what I have lost or will these scars become a part of my previously comfortable skin?

I know that each of you reading this will want to tell me that I am the same person.  Each of you will wish to tell me that I am beautiful.  I appreciate your thought and your intentions, but I want you to know that what concerns me at this point is what I think of myself.  What concerns me is how long it will take for me to feel comfortable in my own skin so that I actually can be the same person I was before.  I know I am beautiful.  I just need to figure out what that means to me now…

“Beauty?...To me it is a word without sense because I do not know where its meaning comes from nor where it leads to.” -Pablo Picasso