Skip to main content

Stay Beautiful : A Lesson in Positive Thinking

Today at work, a man was leaving the building and told me "stay beautiful".
Usually, when a man says that I assume he is giving me a compliment but today I took it another way. After a break up, a break down, and a build up in progress, "stay beautiful" means so much more to me. A bad romance can kill your confidence. Weight gain can kill your self esteem. Working long hours can kill your social life.
Here I was, a complete mess. I felt  ugly and if my outside reflected what I felt within, I looked ugly too. Then, he told me to stay beautiful and it all suddenly made sense. Staying beautiful isn't just a compliment a man or woman casually tosses your way. It's an action. Staying power isn't easy. We often see celebrities, whose foundation of fame and fortune often started off with a "look" long before it ended with talent (if at all). That's when the plastic surgery commences. We see the nips and tucks and eventually the disfigured faces and bodies of The Beautiful Ones.  Because, in this world, staying beautiful is an ongoing quest. It's not a matter of simply existing. Staying beautiful requires work.
I'm not one for the nip and tucking and if I had the money or the interest, it would come in the form of liposuction and a boob lift/reduction. For me, staying beautiful means maintaining my happiness and all that makes me who I am. That's not easy to do. So many things take us outside of who we are and where we want to be. Life is continuously happening and you have to either hop on and ride it til the wheels fall off or get run over by it.
There are mornings where life has me so beat down that I find it difficult to even put on my lip gloss. There are times that I wonder why he didn't love me or she didn't hug me more, or just how these stretch marks invaded my body. I feel so much less than beautiful. Then, I remember that staying beautiful is more than the lip gloss and stretch marks. It's more than the pain of the past, it's about the constant, and the constant is ME. I will always be me unless I allow people and life to change that. So I work. I work hard to remain beautiful. No one makes me ugly unless I allow it, and I won't have it.
Stay beautiful folks.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And I Am Telling You... Breaking Up Is Hard To Do!

Dreamgirls was a successful Broadway play for years. It even made it's way to the big screen in 2006. Original headliners of the staged version included then little known Loretta Divine and now long forgotten Jennifer Holliday. Watching the performance of the then robust and popular Holliday allowed me to witness her successful portrayal of the scorned character Effie White. In a passionate performance she screamed, sobbed and belted the lyrics of "And I Am Telling You, I'm Not Going" in such a way that years later many have made a valiant effort to match her vocal bravado in singing the same song. Of those attempts, most have fallen far from the mark. With this knowledge, I wondered why was it that Jennifer Hollidays career didn't move much further beyond her Dreamgirls fame. Upon doing a bit of google research ( not the most reliable, but definitely the most convenient) I have found several theories as to why Jennifer Holiday's career came to a standstill...
Post a Comment
Read more

Good Morning Heartache....

When I was about 14 my mother gave me a book called "Good Morning Holy Spirit". It was a Christian book that was aimed to keep believers in tune with God. It encouraged the reader to wake up each morning and greet God, allowing Him to play a role in your life each day. I still try to do that. Recently, I realized that another part of my life that I can certainly do without is heartache. Getting married and going through the motions of a divorce gives way to feelings that are far from pleasant. It's stressful, it's emotionally draining and it hurts like the dickens. With all of these aches and pains I still press on with my decision to end my marriage. My husband understands. For the first time last night, I poured my heart out to him, sobbed and expressed my pain. I told him that I loved him, but I could never be with him again. I admitted that I don't know how to be his wife. I admitted that I am petrified of being a single parent to two girls. I mourn...
2 comments
Read more

K-Ci & Jo-Jo Come Clean.... : REVIEW

When I heard that K-Ci and Jo-Jo were coming out with a reality show documenting their experience going through rehab, I was excited. The first thing I wanted to know was which one was K-Ci and which one was Jo-Jo (yes, it has been that long since I have seen let alone heard of them since highschool). I always loved Jodeci and when the two lead singers of the group branched off and made a few ballads I looked forward to hearing more, but more never came. Years passed by and I continued to play their hits and came to terms with the fact that this group was never going to reunite and the two brothers whose vocals lead the group to super stardom with were coked up and out for the count. Enter K-Ci and Jo-Jo: Coming Clean. I figured they were going to finally boot the snow blizzard that packed their nostrils. WRONG. They are kicking the alcohol habit. They claim that there was never a drug problem. We all have heard otherwise, but they insist. If moscato can turn me into what these t...
9 comments
Read more