You are beautiful, whether a boy says it or not.
Everyone knows the story.
The story of the insecure, young girl who never thought much of herself and never really believed that she was pretty.
Then one day, her dream boy in the school hallway who so coolly leaned his prepubescent body against the lockers during class change decided to look her in the eye and tell her;
“You’re beautiful”.
How can two such simple, once meaningless words, mean so much? How could her cheeks flush with red heat and her smile grow so large her jaw hurt? She remembers how her heart slowly beat and she could hear the thudding of it in her ears. The butterflies that had been constricted in a field of endless winter finally burst into a field of spring and for the first time, she felt whole.
Then. It stops.
Then. He leaves.
Then. She isn’t beautiful.
Or, at least she thinks she isn’t.
Her source of constant affirmation is gone and therefore, so is any proof of her beauty.
Time passes. Maybe it’s months, maybe it’s years. Let’s say it’s a few years. College arrives and the insecure high school girl is now a less insecure, stably confused, young woman with the world ahead of her.
She’s so ready for the exciting years of college, with so much optimism. Then, here he comes.
Another source of affirmation.
He sweeps her off her feet with a more mature, slightly more chivalrous form of love. He holds her body at night in the most vulnerable ways for the first time in her life. And now, those two little words are said again;
“You’re beautiful”
But this time around, they mean so much more. They are an affirmation of her face, her body, her womanhood, her spirit, her mind. Everything that makes her a human being and a woman, are wrapped in those two words.
“You’re beautiful”.
Then, it stops.
Again.
Graduation happens.
Things…change.
Plans fall through.
Different turn.
Stolen her first true love.
It left her crying on the bathroom floor at 2 AM. It left her hitting her head against a wall asking what she could have done differently.
She looked in the mirror at her puffed face from all tears, from rubbing her face raw. She swallowed and her throat hurt from holding back all her sobs. She looked in the mirror and asked.
“I’m beautiful?”
Just like this. She looked at herself and remembered when her last source of affirmation saw her tear stained and miserable. When he saw her sick and full of mucus. The times he held her hair when she vomited. Even the times where she was in sweat pants and stuffing her face with greasy pizza. She remembered that he would still say;
“You’re beautiful.”
She looked in the mirror, and for the first time in a long time, she felt beautiful. And for the first time ever, she was her own source of affirmation.
“You’re beautiful.” She softly whispered to the red-faced young girl staring back at her.
She did not have to be perfect to be beautiful. She had been beautiful in the ugliest of times. If anything, those ugly times sculpted her into an even more beautiful, genuine, and strong human being.
Through the tragic times, someone thought she was beautiful. Now, she was in another traumatic phase, and she could be her own source of affirmation. Her strength, much like the butterflies from the first time she heard those two little words, burst through her being like a cascading waterfall.
You are beautiful. Be your own source of affirmation. Love yourself for growing stronger with each heart ache. You are beautiful.
