January 2, 2010: No more lies.

I look in the mirror and wonder if I will ever be able to look at myself and honestly say the reflection is beautiful. The circles under my eyes are what get me the most. I’m constantly tired, and that shows.

It is a little nice though to be able to scratch my face and rub my cheeks without having to worry if the part where I scratched and rubbed smudged a bit. And as much as I don’t want to, I still put forth countless moments coming up with some sort of highly fashioned yet perfectly comfortable outfit for whatever it is I will be doing just moments later. Today it was lunch with my brother. And it certainly should not have taken as long as it did for me to get ready. But its only day two, and I’m learning.

I look in the mirror too often and I notice it more now that my face is just the simple face it has always been underneath all the blush and eye shadow. I secretly liked looking at myself in the mirror when I had makeup on, and now that I do not, I grimace in the sight of my own reflection. There are scars and marks and circles, as I mentioned before, that I used to cover up and now that I can’t cover them up they are out in the open, which is sort of like untold secrets. Makeup made me feel safe, or at least safer than I was without it. It made me feel confident, which it often does to those who wear it, and it made me believe it was the only thing that would get people to like me. Which all makes sense in why my God, my creator, my beautiful Father in Heaven is calling me to do this. He doesn’t want me to hide. He wants me to smile. Smile, with confidence, with the teeth he so delicately made for me, and smile with the boldness that my beauty shines within my soul.

And I just have to keep reminding myself that that is what this is for. The truth. The truth is what this is for; not the lies I have led myself to believe. God’s truth and beauty lives inside of us and shines outside of us, and the world can’t tell us what is and what isn’t beautiful.

I really wanted this to be as far away from a “find the beauty within you” cheesy self help guide as possible but that is what it is sounding like. I don’t want it to be that simply because more people stay away from cheesy and laugh at self help. This is reality. The truth is, is that I don’t find myself beautiful at all and I am not the only person in the world who feels the same way. I’m not sure what it is like to feel beautiful and these thoughts of mine sadden God. Just as if something I created came to life and was ashamed of how it was made. I would feel hurt and saddened. And those are two things I do not want God to feel. So I am learning, with His help only. The world cannot help me. The only thing the world has helped me do thus far is subtly forcing myself to believe the lie that my worth comes from my clothing, charm, and painted face. And that lie will have power over me no more, not this year.