I had five papers to do, a quiz to study for, a mushroom to look up, and all I wanted was some coffee. "You're very pretty ya know", a quiet voice whispered above the holiday jazz music that was eating at what little focus I had. Impatiently, I was sliding through my phone searching for the Starbucks app that is always in the same place, but the clutter of my busy mind had moved it elsewhere. Suddenly I realized the small voice was talking to me. I stopped what I was doing and looked down to meet the gaze of big brown eyes staring up at me. "Oh, hello", she smiled and gave me the fake, shy wave; it was obvious that she was a miniature diva. Her curly brown hair was falling out of her ballerina bun that a mother somewhere had spent time, energy and a lot of hairspray to look nice. "This is my doll, she's my favorite", in her small, glitter painted hands was a doll, with hair just as messy as hers. "She's beautiful", I smiled and bent down to her level at the request of her grabbing hand.
She held the doll up to my face and looked back to examine the whole picture. "She looks like you. She's beautiful too. I want to be beautiful." As the doll was brought back to her chest, I stood up, still looking down in disbelief of what I heard. "But you are beautiful. Very beautiful!"
"No", she looked down and shuffled her feet.
"Why would you say that?"
"You look like Elsa, she's pretty. I don't look like you." as she stared up at me, my concern was no longer about getting my Peppermint Mocha.
The father of the young girl finished his order and read the shock on my face as he turned my direction. He grabbed his daughters hand, smiled at me, and walked to the end of the bar to wait for his drinks. I overheard him questioning her on what she had said and reassuring her that she was daddy's princess, but the look on her face means the same thing to every girl, "thank you, but I can't believe that". He quickly changed the subject and began asking her what she told Santa she wanted for Christmas. Listing princess after princess, she went through dolls, costumes, movies, all the while describing them as beautiful and perfect. Stumbling through my order, I paid and made it to the end of counter. My mind was racing with what to say to this little girl, or if I should even say anything, when I realized I didn't know what I had ordered.
A few minutes passed and the barista yelled out my name, as I grabbed the cup I bent down to my new friend. "I'd like to show you a few pictures if that's ok", asking her father's approval with my eyes, which he met with a nod. I opened my phone and flipped through some pictures, until I found the ones I was looking for.
"This is me when I was a little younger than you are", I handed her the phone and she smiled at my toothy grinning, fountain haired self. I went on to explain to her why this picture is important. My grandmother was the glue that held my family together and we lost her a few years ago. She was so beautiful and her beauty wasn't just on the outside. "She was a real fighter, a vey strong woman. Ya see my grandma had cancer and she beat it. She use to tell the girls in my family that God would never give us more than we can handle, and she's right. We learned that we were made with purpose and carefully crafted into something so beautiful that only God himself could've made us. So to me she's one of the prettiest princesses, but I don't think she looks like your dolls."
She looked down and I flipped to another picture as she re-met my gaze.
I pointed to the different people as I said their names, "this is my mommy and my big sister". She pulled the phone closer to her face, staring at my sister and wore a confused face. "She doesn't look like you", she pointed to my sister. I laughed at the comment I've heard my whole life. "I know! Actually, she looks the exact opposite of me. She has long black hair, dark eyes, and she's really tan! Look at me, I'm the lighter version of her!" She began to laugh and pulled down a piece of her hair. "My hair is like hers!" she smiled a huge grin and began twisting the hair around her finger. "Ya it is! And ya know what, I wanted to look just like her when I was little. I thought she was the prettiest person in the world." The little girl handed me my phone and looked at her dad that was smiling down at the pair of us. When she shifted her gaze back to me her face fell with concern, "but you look like your mommy, and your mommy is pretty too. I don't look like my mommy." I clicked my phone shut and smiled. "You were made to look like you. I'm sure you're mommy is beautiful, just like mine, but I grew up wanting to look like someone else and I didn't feel like a princess because I never got black hair and brown eyes, but I learned that I was made to be different. Just like you."
She smiled and I stood up to apologize to her father for taking up so much time, when I turned to meet a barista. She had short, wavy blonde hair that framed her blue eyes, that now were tearing up. Grinning at me and pushing a drink towards the girl's father, she said, "Thank you, that's my daughter. I've been trying to help her understand what beauty is, and I think you did."
After reassuring the mother that it was really no big deal, I went to my table and thought about what I wanted for Christmas. All of that stuff I had written down to send off to my mom, grandparents, aunts, uncles, began to run through my head and I quickly began to cross one thing off after another. I didn't want those things purely because I liked them, I wanted to fit in, be beautiful, meet the standards of a what a college girl should be wearing. So I decided that this year I'm asking Santa for what I want. For the things that I felt truly beautiful in and not what magazines told me I did.
I didn't know the meaning of beauty myself I guess, I had to learn it from a little girl in Starbucks.
