So they say beauty is only skin deep. Real beauty comes from inside. Cultivate your inner beauty.
But what if you grow up in a beautiful place--Hawaii--surrounded by beautiful people? And you are the tall, chubby, not-so-pretty kid, with bad skin? Whose brother tells her every day of her life: you are fat and ugly? And the mean boys at school chime in with their own raft of unforgettably nasty nicknames?
Surprisingly, you are incapable of jealousy. It's not about being jealous of the beautiful people around you. You make friends easily, in fact. But the school administrators separate you from those friends in sixth grade--you are considered the rowdiest of the little clique. And so you are left alone, thinking, thinking, thinking about being ugly in a beautiful world.
You are 12.
Anorexia seems a good way to control the only element of this equation you can control: weight. You get down to 95 lbs., which means your height stalls at 5'6". You are proud that you can stick your forearms halfway up under your ribcage. That you can subsist on three 210 calorie Carnation Instant Breakfast bars a day. If you eat something you are "not supposed" to eat, you prescribe yourself exercise. 25 laps around the neighborhood on your bike for one cookie.
You have some control. Lots of people don't recognize you when you show up for Book Day the week before 7th grade. They compliment you. You look skinny! You look better! But you don't remember anyone using the word "pretty."
Your mom doesn't call you pretty or beautiful either. And she objects, strenuously, that you subscribe to Vogue Magazine. Those images are unhealthy, she believes. [It takes you decades to realize and admit that she is right.]
You do a lot of other things--negative things--to get attention in 7th and 8th grade. It becomes your Rebel Without a Clue phase. You're lucky you don't get kicked out of your private school. They just don't catch you doing what they know you are doing.
Your dad doesn't call your pretty or beautiful either. He's too busy with his three jobs. And still befuddled, probably, over his disintegrating marriage. Your mom never really loved him. It is the tragedy of his life, and he will never get over it, even after the divorce and remarrying someone else.
You recover from the physical aspect of anorexia when you go to live in Europe in 9th grade, with the rest of the family on dad's sabbatical. You never really grow to hate or fear food, and damn, the food is good in Germany. And the German girls think many of the things you do for "beauty" are beyond silly. Only prostitutes shave their legs and underarms! They could care less what you look like.
The psychological side of anorexia lasts longer. You struggle to see in the mirror what others see.
Still, no one calls you beautiful. Life throws you some difficult curves, and most of your adulthood becomes a battle for survival. Your body image has just begun to normalize when a terrible medication balloons your weight. Now, you really are fat. And it's years before you can do anything about it. When you can, you attack with a vengeance. You love exercise, and it was torture not being able to work out for years. Obstacle after obstacle slows the weight loss. But you don't give up. You never give up. You shed a remarkable amount of weight. You are "normal" sized again.
And you're starting to turn heads now, it seems. But you don't really even recognize what that is. Is he flirting with me? He just sat down at my table in the coffee shop and introduced himself. This is the third time he's come over to me in the weight room. Compliments about your appearance are a daily occurence. And yet it still doesn't compute.
Your mother still can't say the words "You're beautiful." You emailed your sister a picture yesterday, and just came home to two scathing emails ridiculing the photo. The tears are flowing, hours later, despite her protests (on voice mail and email...you won't pick up the phone) that she was only teasing.
But it's only been teasing. Teasing, teasing, teasing. All these years, nothing but teasing.
I just want to be beautiful. I need to be beautiful, at least in one person's eyes. I have to be beautiful in one person's eyes to be able to be beautiful in my own.