Chapter 130: Who We Are

Today was a pretty boring day. I spent much of the day at work drawing mermaids and trying to make some sense out of one of the books my gorgeous piano instructor, Viktor, sent home with me. It really is a shame that this book, clearly intended for children who are learning piano, seemed so complicated to me. Of course, I have to remind myself that it is stuff that I haven’t been taught yet so I can’t really be expected to understand it yet… but it still does bother me a bit. Aside from that, it was a really blasé day. I woke up on time at 7:30am, I didn’t work out because I decided I’d rather skip Monday instead of Wednesday this week so I could workout with my Mom. I ate Cinnamon Toast Crunch for breakfast and had a pretty decadent dinner from Whole Foods that was going to be like $30 but thanks to the VISA gift card I won from work last week and my Mom wanting to split, it didn’t cost me a thing. It was delicious. I may elaborate on that a bit later but for now I have a specific topic on my mind. Like I said, it was a pretty boring day, details-wise, but there has been something on my mind all day.

As I mentioned last night, tonight was the premiere of Jessica Simpson’s new reality show, “The Price Of Beauty.” I’ve been really excited to see this show after seeing Jessica’s recent appearances on Oprah and, just today, “The View.” I feel really strongly about what she is doing – putting together this whole show to give the youth of America examples of how beauty has so many different faces across the world, and that the only beauty that truly matters is the beauty inside of us all. This is a message that has always been very near and dear to my heart and I feel extremely grateful to and proud of Jessica for doing this whole thing. I think it is truly astonishing that this girl, who is best known for not knowing the difference between chicken and fish, has decided to use this huge platform she has gotten to try to make a real statement to the world. It may seem silly, but just the thought of it all is nearly bringing a tear to my eye as I type this. I just feel really strongly about this whole thing and have become very emotional hearing her speak of the whole experience in appearances and such to promote the show. You can tell that the entire experience has changed her in such a deep way and she is doing something great to try to share it with the world. There are not enough shows like this on television, and not enough people doing things like this in the world. It is truly inspirational to me, particularly considering that what she is doing with this show is something that I have always dreamed of doing with my own life. No, I have never particularly dreamed of traveling across the world to examine the concepts of beauty in different cultures but I have always dreamed of doing some sort of documentary series on a topic that means a lot to me and that has the power to positively impact the lives and minds of people around the world.

In thinking about the whole concept of the show, I have really been giving a lot of thought to my life and my personal concepts of beauty. I have always been a person who strives to see the beauty in everybody I come in contact with, and I like to think I’ve done a pretty good job of it. What I have had more trouble with in my life has been trying to see the beauty in myself. It’s no secret to anybody who knows me, or even to anybody who has read this blog, that I am a really confident person. I have a pretty staggering amount of faith in my self, my beliefs, my talents and my abilities. I have never really lacked confidence in who I am as a person or what I am capable of achieving in this life. The one area of my life that I have lacked confidence in, though, is my appearance. It’s not that I don’t feel like I have an appeal or am unaware of my strengths, appearance-wise, but all of my life I have always felt as though I have talents, abilities and personality in order to make up for my physical appearance. I have said many times throughout my life that I make up for what I lack in looks in a plethora of other arenas. I wouldn’t necessarily say that I have ever felt like I was ugly or anything like that, but I have certainly felt like I was unattractive. Even in my romantic relationships, I have always felt like I was “dating up,” because I have more often than not dated guys who are socially lacking but very attractive. In most of my relationships I have felt as though my boyfriend was the lure for others to talk to us and I was the reason they stuck around. It is a fact of life that we gravitate towards people we find physically appealing, in one way or another, even if we have no intentions of pursuing a sexual relationship with them. It is simply human nature. As Jewel said, though, “what we call human nature in actuality is human habit.” That’s a discussion for a different day, though. In any sense, I have always felt like I needed to date somebody who I felt was considerably more attractive but considerably less interesting than I am. I think this may explain a lot about why most of my relationships haven’t worked out.

In my younger years, I even went through a series of eating disorders and extreme measures to try to lose weight or distract from my weight or whatever else I could do to get people to look at me instead of my physical appearance. It’s funny, too, because I think a lot of people would be surprised that I am even writing this blog. I don’t behave like somebody who is insecure about their looks. I don’t give off an air of insecurity or anything. I am just like everybody else, though, in the sense that I feel the same insecurities as anybody else does. I just hide them well. More than that, though, I think I stave them off pretty well. I have gotten really good at fighting off my negative feelings about my appearance through affirmations and counteracting those thoughts with more positive thoughts. Still, that type of thing never truly goes away and I still have plenty of moments where I feel fat and disgusting and like nobody will ever love me. It’s a part of life, I suppose. What I know, though, is that no matter what my physical appearance may be there is somebody out there who will love me for everything that I am, both internally and externally. That person is out there – I am sure of it. I will find them eventually. In the meantime, I am working really hard to love and accept every part of my physicality, as well as to mold it all into something I can be genuinely proud of.

As I mentioned before, I do still have plenty of moments where I am not proud of my physical appearance and there are a lot of things that I do to distract from it or try to dress it up. My affinity for wearing designer clothing is one example. My makeup would be another. These are two of the things in my life that I spend the most money and time working on. Of course, neither of these things are solely about trying to take distract people’s eyes from my weight or my thinning hair or whatever else I dislike about my physical appearance. That leads me to a different portion of this topic that I wanted to discuss. On the premiere episode of Jessica Simpson’s “The Price Of Beauty,” Jessica, Ken and Caycee traveled to Thailand to discover some of the things that Thai women do to make themselves feel beautiful, and they visited a tiny village where the women wear golden rings from early childhood in order to elongate their necks and lower their shoulders. The women in this village were very beautiful in their own ways – none of them wore makeup or had fashionable hairstyles or clothes, but their every day clothing looked like they were ready for some sort of celebration. Their clothes were basically rags, but they were full of bright colors and intricate jeweled details. They were really beautiful and seeing this women speak about what all of these things represent to them and how beautiful they feel wearing these gold rings around their necks, it truly was inspiring. It kind of reminded me of my makeup in a lot of ways. I don’t know that many people look at me and think, “Wow, that guy is beautiful,” but when I see myself in the mirror with different makeup looks I have come up with, that is how I feel. It isn’t really about whether or not other people see it or agree, it is about me feeling as if I am beautiful. The same goes for my designer clothes. It isn’t really about making anybody else feel anything really, but about how it makes me feel. These golden rings around these women’s necks, stretching them to longer than they should be naturally, may appear odd or unusual to the rest of the world, but the women wearing them feel like they are really something special and beautiful. That is inspiring.

Of course, this show did not just feature positive concepts of beauty – in Bangkok, Jessica and the crew discovered that skin bleaching is a very popular thing to do. The Thai people consider fair skin a sign of wealth and beauty – the logic is that people with a tan have been out working in the sun. They met with a woman, a former bar singer, who had been so obsessed with having fair skin that she used enough skin bleaching products to basically burn off the skin on her face and leave her extremely discolored. She quit singing because she was so embarrassed by her appearance and couldn’t bear to go outside anymore. She was married when she began doing this, but after her husband saw what had happened to her face he left her. This poor woman basically became a hermit because she was so ashamed of her physical appearance… and for what reason? Because she was so obsessed with trying to be the concept of beauty in her culture. It was really a heartbreaking story and took me back to a lot of different places in my life. I did a lot of crazy things in attempts to lose weight and become the concept of beauty in my culture. I experimented with drugs known to cause weight loss, I vomited up everything I consumed and even, as recently as 2006, completely starved myself in attempts to lose the extra weight that I have carried for pretty much my entire life. What did any of these things really do for me in the end? I still carry the excess weight but now I carry a much heavier excess weight emotionally.

What reason was there for any of this? What did I gain from any of it? The only answer I can come up with is perspective. I gained perspective, and the knowledge that what is truly beautiful about me is what is on the inside; the only beauty that truly matters. Do I still wish to lose weight? Yes, but now I know better than to try any of those unhealthy and self-destructive ways to do it. I have been down those roads and they have only led to feelings much worse than having a few silly insecurities about my appearance. I have even learned to look at myself and every now and then see something special and even just a little bit beautiful. I have learned to appreciate the gifts that I have been given, both internally and externally, and I have learned which beauty is really of value and which is not. It is a pretty powerful thing, and a thing that it really seems like Jessica Simpson may have learned, as well, along this journey. The show was really a beautiful experience – it had it’s share of wacky, fun moments and really touching, enlightening moments, but mainly it really shed a light on what it means to be truly beautiful. I am really excited to see more, and urge anybody who may read this blog to check the show out and give it a chance. No matter what your opinion is of Jessica Simpson, it really is worth taking a look at – it very well may change your perspective on what beauty really is in this world. Thank you for listening, and goodnight.