natural beauty

It’s normal to want to feel attractive.  Even birds want to ‘show off what they got.’ Lots of animals have various mating rituals to enhance themselves to attract a mate.  Trying to destroy ourselves in some way is not normal, and I can’t think of any other animal in the animal kingdom that would go through great efforts or any efforts to self-destruct or distort themselves.
 
Well, animals in the wild anyway.  One of my friends had an obese cat that scared me.  It wouldn’t leave the bathroom when I needed to use it, and it ‘growled’ at me when I tried to shoo it out, so I had to pee with a massive cat watching me.
 
There are so many people going under the knife to defy effects of aging, and women spending probably billions on beauty and anti-aging products. It seems that just we aren’t happy with ourselves.  The beauty industry often takes advantage of our natural tendency to want to feel attractive into something perverse where we have to be something we’re not to be beautiful.  There are a few movie stars who I think looked better when they were more natural. By more natural, I mean with the nose and lips they were born with. 
 
What I’m not talking about is not caring, having visible arm pit hair, or something like that. Maybe some people don’t think I care because I started using a fanny pack when I go for walks, but I do care. It’s just different now.  I used to iron my clothes.  Now I hang things up right out of the dryer.  If I’m going someplace special, I’ll shave my legs.  I dye my hair.  I eat mostly healthy, and I exercise.
 
But I eat too much, and I’m working on figuring out why. I’m tired of using chips and salsa as a shield and armor.  I’m not obese, but I’d be healthier without a few pounds.  What am I trying to protect myself from?  Why is part of me afraid of my own beauty?  I don’t know yet.
 
I’m ready to swim deep and get to the root of things.  I know that eating too much is how I’ve comforted myself, and I’m ready to find healthy ways to soothe myself, feel protected, and celebrate accomplishments.  Going deep requires endurance and going to depths beyond where light has reached, and I’m not sure what I’ll find, but I’m ready to uncover and hold my own natural beauty like the precious gift that it is.

​It is normal and healthy to want to feel beautiful and attractive.  I don’t want to be something I’m not.  I just want to be unafraid of my beauty.  I’m different than I was when I was 20.  My beauty is not the same as it once was, but I believe that every human has something beautiful to celebrate and that includes you and me. Right now.  Let us all be unafraid of the things that make us beautiful.