Jun 12, 2007

why does it matter?

I don't know why it matters.

This vanity. I mean, holy shit.
I was presented with a photo of myself today that made me cringe. Really and truly made me cringe. And I mean, it wasn't even a bad picture, I just didn't see myself in it. I didn't see me, like that. I guess I could even see how it could be a good picture of someone. Someone else. Someone far less attractive. But it was me, there. It was a picture of me. And that shook me, because I didn't want it to be. You know, like, wow, I walk around all day thinking I'm hot shit and then this who I really am. How I really look. To other people. Yes. It's true. I walk around looking like NOT hot shit. Well, not hot anyway.

Yeah. It really got to me. Then it got to me that it got to me. And sure sure. I understand how I look. Or I tend to. I mean, short, dark, husky, Semitic. I've learned to find all those things beautiful in the quest to find myself beautiful. Which was no small feat. Understand, I grew up in Santa Barbara, which is just about the vainest places on earth and one might say the beauty standard falls just slightly northern of my particular background. So, you know, somewhere along the way I learned to stop equating blond or delicate or pale or tall stick thin or button nosed with beautiful. I noticed all these amazing looking women of varying backgrounds and ethnicities who were stunning and came find myself beautiful, in my own right. And also, I came to not care as much. To not focus on it. To mostly not concern myself with how I look all the time, to curve this vicious vanity bred into me over years of tender adolescent.

Or so I thought. And then I see a picture. And boom. There I am. Sad daff0dil. And what do I do? I lose it. Thats not me. That can't be me. How do I deal with that being me? How do I NOT know thats me?

And I don't know why it matters. I have GREAT friends and wonderful boyfriend and people think I'm wonderful and some even think I'm beautiful. But suddenly I'm pressed with this notion. Not just of beauty, but of self image.how I see myself. and it stretches into my self worth and my grip on reality.

And the real reality? The reality is that it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I look like that or something else or someone else. I mean, health matters. Self confidence matters. The ability to see oneself as a vibrant person and sexually attractive person, even, I think matters. But I still don't understand how my own image of myself, physically, can be so central to my own sense of peace.

I only know my reaction is unhealthy. I look all sorts of ways to all sorts of people. And mostly, how I look to them, versus how I am to them, in largely irrelevant.

And I welcome your feedback

Really.
Why does it matter?

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