Am I Beautiful At All? - 5-2-10

I asked my father today, knowing what I was doing and feeling no compunction, if he thought I was beautiful. Knowing how often he complimented me on a very regular basis, he scoffed tolerantly and said, “You know the answer to that question. You’re just fishing for compliments.” I said, “Yes, I am, because I need to hear it.” I could hear the smile in his voice as he said of course I was beautiful. I asked him what was beautiful about me and he rattled off with alacrity my skin, my hair, my eyes, my figure, my hands, my feet, my smile, my teeth. I was starting to glow when what I risked happened, as I knew it would. He paused in his list and in a sterner voice added, “You should be out finding a man who can appreciate all the beautiful things about you. What are you expecting to happen? How is this going to end?” I shrugged him off as I must and we fell back to TV watching. How could I tell him I’m a bit tied up? That I don’t want anyone else because there is no one else like B____? That I’m not a fool but I have to wear the scarlet letter of it anyway?

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I let it go. What else could I do? The fact of the matter is that if you’re not actively searching for a man, you are not allowed to participate in the grown-ups’ conversations about relationships, weddings, and raising children. Your opinions don’t belong. When I was dating B____, I experienced what it was like to have the flood-gates open and having admittance to the world everyone else inhabited, the world of connections, the world I had always pressed my nose against the glass to see. My right to talk about my dreams and plans for a wedding and marriage and babies was no longer amputated by the inevitable censure, “Why don’t you get a date first?” That had been the response I received when I wanted to eagerly share opinions I had, no exceptions. That was one extremely lovely, rather unexpected perk of my relationship with B____ – I was a first-class citizen now.

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How could I tell my father I am working, I am searching, I’m not giving up? How could he understand that right now I don’t have anybody but my father to tell me I’m beautiful and have it mean something?

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When you’re alone, you lose those rights in that world of connections. You have only one right – the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and probably will be used against you in a court of community.

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So for now I’ll just have to trust God finds me beautiful and try to see it for myself and make that be enough and just not ask anymore.

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But I do have a beauty to unveil and I am not to be wasted. I am meant to be seen.