Live Metanoia

So this weeks post was actually a Facebook post I posted a year or two ago. I dabble in prose and poetry, and wrote a little something about the idea of having to meet beauty standards. The expectation of women to be perfect and never age is more prevalent than ever. Social media is the biggest culprit with their filtered pictures and photoshop. Everyone is constantly in view of someone younger, more beautiful, more..well more everything. It has taken me a while to be comfortable in my skin. Sometimes I still struggle with it. I mean, all any woman wants is to feel pretty right ?

Pretty:

I have never considered myself to be a pretty girl. Not in high school and not in college. I have always thought of myself as nice. Ordinary.

Growing up I was surrounded by these thin, blonde haired, blue eyed, tan girls who always got dates and had boyfriends. I was pale. With dark curly hair and a big forehead. I have dark eyes, no not “chocolate brown”, but “ See through the abyss” dark eyes. I was always told I was intimidating as well. Not ever pretty.

I had a friend who told me once that I glared so hard at people they couldn’t look at me. It wasn’t intentional. And that’s flattering right ?

As I’ve gotten older I wish I could tell you I have learned to feel pretty but that’s not true. Sometimes I still feel the same as I did when I was sixteen and people would tease me and say I looked just like my brother…who is a man. Not a woman…like me. And who is apparently more photogenic and attractive than I am.

At this present moment I am learning to be okay with not being pretty. Because I have learned that pretty fades. Pretty gets laugh lines and dark spots. Pretty gets gray hair and weight gain.

So screw pretty.

I am more proud than ever to be considered intimidating. I love that I have kinship with strong, warrior women who are fierce and witty and strike fear into the hearts of the boys from then and the men of now.

Screw pretty.

Because I am brave and loyal and violent and charismatic. I am breathtaking and independent and wild and every tear I shed when I was younger was worth being the woman I am today.

Screw pretty.

I am a tsunami and I am worth a million of “pretty”.

My journey continues,

Kaycee