That Girl

The above photo is me and friend doing something or rather waiting for something to happen in high school. I would guess we are 14 or 15 years old in this photo. I have blacked out my classmates image because she is now married to a gentrified land owner in a small Caribbean nation where the locals often wish her and his family ill will. I added the smiley face because the black blob alone seemed odd. Having a classmate who married an overlord from a small Caribbean nation, not odd apparently.

A couple of weeks ago an old classmate added some photos to her Facebook page and I was tagged in one. That alone is not so odd. I had a rather large high school class(around 500 or so) and being involved with the drama club and drama productions left me appearing in a fair number of photos at that time. What caught my attention was her caption for the picture: I don't know when or where this was taken-R.P. (edited to remove photographer's name) took it- He obviously had an appreciation for beautiful women. After reading the caption I went to check on the photo, feeling certain that she had made an error. My maiden name was a very common name and with the first name Amy there was usually several of us floating around at the same time and I have never been the sort of woman/girl one would call beautiful. Maybe cute, maybe on a good day kind of pretty, but NEVER beautiful. Much to my surprise it was in fact a photo of me. A much much younger me, but still me. I stared at the photo for some time. Trying to remember when it was taken. Trying to remember what was happening at that time. I cringed over the hair, make-up and I started to criticize the image; when it hit me: I was beautiful.

But never in my life have I ever felt beautiful. Honestly not once. Why did my 15 year old self not see herself as something other than ugly and stupid? Well, for most of that young 15 year old person's life she was told she was ugly and stupid. And I don't mean that someone once told me I was chubby or someone once told me I look unattractive. I mean my mother told me directly on multiple occasions that I was ugly, fat and stupid (the Trifecta of low self-esteem). Many years have passed since the last time I allowed my mother to speak to me this way. Okay, not that many. It has been 6 years since I allowed my mother to speak to me in this way. In those 6 years, I have forgiven her for her actions. She did the best she could given her own horridly fucked up childhood and in many ways her actions were an unconscious attempt to not lose me, to keep me at home with her forever. Now when the conversation takes a turn for the worst I simply stop it.

Despite my reconciliation of her words and actions, the scars still remain. I have honestly never looked in the mirror and seen a beautiful woman looking back at me. No matter how often my husband assures me, that I am beautiful, I cannot fully believe him. His image of me is tempered by love, I always say to myself. But this picture and that caption have me rethinking it all. I am thinking that not only was I beautiful then, but that I might just be beautiful now, too. Sometimes you just need to see yourself through someone else's eyes to see what is really there.