The results are crooked and less-than ready for a fashion magazine. So it shocked me a bit when she ran to her bedroom mirror, took a thorough look at the hatchet-job I gave her, and she declared: "Beautiful!"
See, Grace loves looking at herself. She thinks -- no, she knows -- she is gorgeous. And it's really a bit startling to see; as a woman in her 30s who works with teenage girls, it's not the norm for a female to look at herself and say, "Beautiful!" I wish that wasn't the case. I see so many smart, kind, thoughtful, and lovely young ladies, and I also see their self-doubt. Why, girls? Why do we do this to ourselves? Because it is an all-encompassing problem.
Confession Time: I covered a "Creative Movement" class the other week (God help me, I did not become an English teacher because of my athletic prowess!), and a student came up to give me her name for attendance and said, "Wow, you are gorgeous!"
*thunk* D'you know what my first, genuine thought was? Perhaps I should call to report a potential drug violation. Because, seriously...?!
I'm not gorgeous, not in any age-group, time-period, or trend. I'm just...ME. I'm the ME who snorts when she laughs, who takes a good year or two before I'm comfortable making casual (planned-out, scripted) water-cooler chat, who has no freakin' clue how my life got where it is or where it's going.
Know what, though? Neither does my sweet Gracie. And she's okay with that...
...so it's high-time to take a cue from her and decide that: I'm okay with that. If ME is all I can be, well, isn't there anything else than the best, beautiful, only version of me out there?
What makes us lose the infinite wisdom we have from the very beginning? Perhaps it's too much doubt, too much caution, too much outside input. Because, as an outsider looking in, we enter this world with the most important information: I. Am. Enough. And good Lord above, if there's nothing else I learn from my daughter and convince her to hold onto throughout her life, well, we've shared a pretty important message.
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