Beauty May Be in the Eye of the Beholder, But the Beholder Reads CosmoGirl and Expects a Size Two

I have to admit, I have a bit of an inferiority complex.  I also have to say that it's no surprise I do.  I'm a bit different than most of the girls I grew up with.  I'm short for my age, with a long torso, which makes my legs even more obviously short.  I'm also built stockier than most girls, with broad shoulders.  The broad shoulders and stocky build help hide a lot of the excess weight I have, and lets me to wear said weight far better than most people in my weight range, but the extra pounds are still there.  I also have rather drab brown hair, that used to be almost black at times.  When paired with my almost pasty pale skin, my hair makes me look washed out and sallow.  My mouth is a bit too small, my head and feet are too big, and my face is too long.


All of these things I learned about myself, because at some point someone told me it was so.


All my life, it was always the other girls and how they all looked, then me. When I was very small, I was picked on because my hair was too dark and I had glasses.  Around 6th grade, I started developing before the other girls. Where the other girls were still scrawny or childishly chubby, I started curving out in ways the others weren't yet.  It was weird.  I was weird.  And the others let me know I was weird every chance they got.


Things stayed the same in middle school school.  Even if they didn't remind me everyday, it was still painfully obvious walking into my classroom that I was the odd one out.  By middle school, my classmates had discovered hair dye and tanning oil.  The other girls, many of which were naturally blonde already, were now blonder and tanner than before.  I wasn't allowed to dye my hair and didn't really want to be tan, so pale and dark haired I stayed.  My classmates were pretty girls, who wore pink and applied nice make-up and did their nails and styled their hair and were fashionable and feminine.  I was the odd one, all long dark hair and pale skin and gunmetal jewelry.  I was the rocker in the small town, the punk of the class where everyone else was a prep school country girl. In high school, I wasn't picked on so much, but it was still painfully obvious where I stood.  I ate lunch alone.


In 10th grade, I made my first friend in school.  She was weird too.  We sat together at lunch, at a separate table than the others.  In 11th grade, I met my best friend, another weirdo.  The three of us ate lunch together, separated from the others.  This was the school year that one of my teachers told the class that she wanted her daughter to dye her hair blonde again because dark hair and pale skin look horrible together.  I was sitting in the front row, a seat to the right.  Everyone looked at me, and the teacher gave a hastily put together apology and said something along the lines of "it's not that way for everyone, of course."  I told her I didn't mind and knew she didn't mean it, and class went on as normal.  That day I went home and cried.  In 12th grade I said I was considering getting a lip ring, and another girl called me trashy and goth for it.  I was upset I was called trashy.  The teacher was more upset I was called goth, because for a small Christian school, being called goth is more insulting than being called trashy.  At my senior formal, my best friend, her date and I were seated at a small table that had been separated from the rest of the students.


I graduated high school, and had never been called beautiful.


Upon arriving at college, I cut and dyed my hair.  I made friends, far more easily than I expected I would, and had the time of my life.  People opened up to me, instead of shunning me for my weirdness.  Then I found out I wasn't weird, just awesome.  I found out that it wasn't considered gross for a girl to play video games and that my opinion mattered even if I chose to wear black t-shirts and jeans instead of pink and frills.  I found out that it's okay that I'm not as feminine as the other girls, that it's okay for me to prefer romping around the woods and getting stuck in trees I was brave enough to climb, but too terrified to get out of.  I didn't have to be like everyone else.


At the end of the year I returned to my old high school for my best friend's graduation.  People were amazed at my appearance.  They called me beautiful, said I looked amazing.  The very people who had once thought me less than plain.


Did my face change so much in a year?  Did a box of red hair dye, a haircut, a dress, and a pair of high heels really make so much of a difference as to bridge the gap between homely and stunning?


Of course not.  The dress, and hair dye, and high heels, and make-up wasn't what made me beautiful.  I shone that night because since leaving there, I had been called lovely.  I had been told I had the most beautiful eyes someone'd ever seen.  I had been praised for my beautiful dark hair and my porcelain skin.  I had been told my laugh was infectious, and that my smile could light up a room.  I finally came out of my shell, and captivated those around me.


I still get insecure sometimes.  It's hard not to, with the media pushing images of starved women down my throat.  It's hard when fashion deems my size "Extra Large".  It's even hard when I stand next to my friends and all of them are tall and skinny and model gorgeous and I'm constantly looking up to them, and them down at me.


But that doesn't really matter anymore.  Because now, now I know that even with my faults, or maybe because of them, I'm beautiful.

In Other News...

Oh dear, it would appear my Eternal Rival seems to believe he's worth enough of my time to hate.  I'm sorry you were so misled, dear sir.

The Beginning

Oh dear, I appear to have started a blog on a friend's whim.  Here I sit, with a glass of milk and nothing to write about.  How awkward.


Well I guess I'll start with telling you (the reader) a little about myself (the blogger).  Let's see... I'm a college student studying psychology, I have a cat (I used to have another cat, but just this day she was given away.  I'm still om nom nommin' on chocolate chips to make myself feel better about it).  When I'm not shuffling around in tall grass fighting Pokemon, level grinding in the woods before the final boss, or doing the same old thing with my friends and not getting tired of it, I make Polymer clay and wire jewelry that [cue shameless plug] I sell online with a friend at our online shop JasuraDesigns on Etsy at http://www.etsy.com/people/JasuraDesigns [end shameless plug]


Now that all that boring stuff is done, I guess I'll do five interesting facts about myself.  Or maybe they aren't interesting at all.  Or maybe some will find them interesting, and some won't care.  Would that make them semi-interesting?  Okay then, here we go:


My Five Semi-Interesting Facts About Myself:


1.) Of my many, many fears (including heights, the dark, closed spaces, and mannequins), one of the things I'm most frightened of is parking garages.  I'm not particularly sure why this is.  It's rather weird, but when I enter one I start panicking and cry.  It's rather embarrassing, actually, and I feel awkward every time I go to the doctor because we have to park in one and I end up all jumpy and puffy-eyed in the doctor's office.


2.)  I adore playing video games.  I'm a binge gamer with game systems, where I pick up a game and play non-stop, not remembering to stop and eat or drink something or sleep for about four or five days, or until I get stuck, and then I set the game down and don't touch it for a few months.  With handhelds I'm a bit more consistent.  I'll pick up and play my handheld for at least a half hour a day, some days as much as seven hours a day.  I guess I'm more consistent with handhelds because they're much more convenient, easily carried with you and they don't need to be plugged into a t.v. and such.


3.)  For all that I adore video games, I'm rather terrible at them.  I hardly ever finish one.  Never finished a Legend of Zelda game, never finished a Final Fantasy Game (unless you actually count X-2, which most people don't).  I'm rather mediocre for a gamer, and always reach a point where I get thoroughly stuck and end up either stopping the game or getting someone to clear that part for me (thank you, Kev, for beating up the sky temple for me!).  I usually end up just stopping though.  I also am more likely to finish a handheld game than a system game, probably because I play them more consistently.


4.)  I have an Eternal Rival.  His name is Mr. Collier.  He seems to believe this blog does not exist.  He also seems to believe that I wouldn't have anything interesting to blog about.  And he's right.  I don't have anything interesting to blog about.  Unfortunately for Mr. Collier, he's one of my uninteresting things I'm talking about for lack of something interesting to talk about.  Anyways, I do I am owed an apology by Mr. Collier for doubting my blog's existence.  And it's your move, kid.


5.)  Oh drat.  I can't think of anything else.  Hmmm...  Well, up until last fall I worked at a dog boarding kennel.  I started working there in the beginning of high school, and I couldn't imagine a better high school part time job.  It was exhausting, and tough, and rewarding.  Like me. :)


Well, one of the reasons I started this blog is because a close friend told me she started a blog, and something in her blog stuck out to me.  She talked about how she decided to get into Magic: the Gathering.  She didn't do this because she had wanted to, but because her boyfriend was interested in it, and she wanted to try to understand his interests to understand him better, and be closer to him.  And I thought that's really cool.  It also got me thinking, and made me realize that I'm rather close-minded when it comes to stuff my friends are interested in.  I have the tendency to repeatedly turn down invitations to play a game with my friends because I don't know how to play, and/or am not interested in learning.  And that's not very fair of me.  They aren't just inviting me to play a game, they're inviting me to spend time with them, get to know a part of them.  And I've been turning it down.  So, I've decided to take on a bit of a challenge, and for each of my close friends, I'll try and get into something they really like.  I may try it and end up loving it, I may try it and end up hating it and never do it again,  but I'm done not giving something new a chance.  I'm going to start with studying up on the rules for the Yugioh card game (even if this game is a load of bullocks).  I hope that by doing this, it will open me up and help me stop losing valuable bonding time with friends because I don't like the activity.  And who knows, maybe I'll get a few new favorite hobbies.


Comment Question of the Day:   Is there something you've either wanted to try, and never did, or feel you should try?  What is it?