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Sparkle (8)
I spent a bit of time this weekend thinking about love. Did you ever wonder as a child what the allure of the glass slipper was? I mean, I am sure it looks lovely on someone who doesn't ever move from one place. Like a dress form. Plus, you know that glass is transparent, so in theory you would have to have really nice feet. But let's consider for a moment how many of us actually have nice feet. Don't lie. Do you REALLY have nice feet?
And then lets remember how smashed up our toes get in a pair of normal shoes, no matter how scrubbed and polished they are. We don't see it and neither does anyone else, so we don't care. Now remember that glass doesn't breathe AT ALL. So what we have are perfectly visible, smashed up, sweaty feet. I can't speak for anyone else, but I know on a normal day I have the balance and grace of a drunk elephant. Those things would be chipped and broken before I got out of the car.
"Glass slipper" via Shutterstock.
Now this is what we are supposed to wear out with our dream man to dance and make everyone at the ball jealous? Oh, come off it. Cinderella's fairy god mother was a sadist.
But for some reason, we are all out there seeking Prince Charming anyway. We are squeezing ourselves into shit that doesn't fit... be it shoes, clothes or personalities... in hopes of catching ourselves a man that will complete us. We primp, we preen, we don't want anyone to see us without our masks of full makeup, hair dye, and tan. I myself gave up on the tan and the hair dye, but I admit quite freely to my make-up complex and complete insecurity. For the most part, it took me until I was into my thirties and already a divorced single mom before I started to come to grips with who I was inside and out, and there are a few things I have had to learn.
If you are a follower if my writing, then you already know my gripes with the world and their teeny, tiny perception of beauty. I will never be a size 2. Or a size 4. Or even a size 6 for that matter. Pre-pregnancy, I was a thin size 8. My genes have blessed me with long legs, a short torso, and wide hips and shoulders. It's damn near impossible to buy cheap jeans. As a kid, I probably looked kind of lanky. As an adult who has carried and birthed my son, I have filled out that frame and now despite still being a size 8, I am of the "curvy" variety... all boobs, butt, and hips.
I dieted, I jogged, I crunched. Weight Watchers, Atkins, starvation, cleanses, I have done my share of trying to mess with what I am. All it did was make me feel like garbage, inside and out. My health would suffer, and mentally I was never going to reach that unobtainable goal of being a size my body was never designed to be.
I like food! I love to cook, I love to bake, and nothing makes me happier when I AM in a relationship than to spoil the man good and proper with my kitchen abilities. I am not going to eat a salad unless I want to eat a salad. Fortunately, I really like salad! I am not unhealthy.
I exercise daily. I take a vitamin. I have no desire to look like Skeletor, Sally from the The Nightmare Before Christmas, or any other wispy thing that looks like it would break in a stiff breeze.
Then there are my insides. They have been a long standing work in progress. As someone who grew up battling depression and its many manifestations, learning to like yourself for who you are despite all of what I stated above. Society throws in our faces what they have deemed beautiful is, and when we don't fit that mold, we start to assume that love won't find us. We don't fit that standard of beauty, so who is going to think we are beautiful? It's a battle inside your mind at times about whether we stay true to ourselves and risk not being beautiful to everyone else, or doing what feels best and most like ourselves and saying FUCK IT to what everyone else views as "beautiful."
