where is my beauty

 My weight and appearance have been my part-time job for as long as I can remember. I have always fluctuated in my weight and I blame it on diet culture and my inability to decide to stay on or off birth control. When I turned 21 I felt much more set in my body and appearance. However, instead I had just figured out what people liked. What garnered me the most comments, the most attention, the most chances of feeling seen and being loved. I felt I finally looked in the mirror and felt "worthy". Which by definition I had written as: 

Worthy (adj.) skinny, blonde. 

This beauty gave me power because it gave me peoples attention, but never for long and rarely positive. Despite it I worked hard to upkeep the pretty face, the tiny waist, and long blonde hair. Waiting for it to be worth it. 

It took people quite a while to see much more in me. Eventually, I hoped I would convince them I was witty and my comments were funny. That I did hold some emotional and cognitive intellect. That I smiled big and laughed easily at pretty much anything. They'd see I loved cautiously and was selective with who I let into my life. Eventually, they would care more about these things than my apparence?

However, conversations with my friends felt like competitions on who could say the more degrading thing about themselves. Coversations with men felt like fitness 101 asking what I do to stay in shape or how pretty my eyes are. Never begging me to go deeper or understand me more. Dinners with my grandparents were plagued with my grammy checking the width of my waist. My parents career conversations turned into what men want and how I will marry rich. 

I began to question if my size and my appearance was what mainly made me who I was?

It seemed everything came back to it. When I was attractive 

Attractive (adj.) having qualities that result in you getting cat called on the street like skipping dinner or wearing that top just because it makes your tits look good

 Men felt it was ok to publically call me names or speak openly about my sexuality. Asking my body count, pressing me for explicit details of my sexual encounters. They felt my beauty made me a commodity. Something to be used, seen, touched, pondered. They felt my body only went skin deep. My heart, soul, and brain felt they were never given any thought or attention. I began to wonder if people could even process me as real.  

I noticed people expected very little of me. If I said I didn't want to work, it was seen as obvious. If I said I wanted to do nothing more than stay at home people would nod their heads. My entire family never pushed me much, not like they did my other siblings. After talking about my grand ideas it would always be blown off with "or just marry rich". I always wondered why others weren't plagued with this same dialogue. Was it my appearance that made me give off this impression? Was it my personality? The fact I did always draw towards the typical gender roles and girly things in life. Yes, I loved bows and pink and glitter. Yes, I never cared much about sports. Sure, I was born for the day I'll be a mom. However, I never realized the identity all these things had created for me. In choosing to love being a woman, I was giving up another path entirely. I was accepting never being taken all that seriously. 

One day, I got so sick of it. Sick of being this pretty, perfect, girl that worked so hard to be all the things that seemed to give people the ammo they needed to treat me like this. It is hard work. Constantly striving, performing, and worrying about how you are viewed externally. My weeks became filled with routines like:

-Gym daily. 50 minutes of Cardio. Fast until 2. Hair mask. Face mask. Self-tanner. Hair appointment. Nails. 

So self-consuming. So self-seeking. And for what?

For men to then look at me and now feel they can use me or belittle me? For society to now think I am a bubblehead? For my family to see me as a pretty face?

So, I ate again. I loved eating. Sweets, Treats, Pastries. I dyed my hair darker and cut it short. I did this as a defiance of all these things and people who said these things to me and my body. I wanted to find out for myself if all these beliefs people had about me would go away if I looked different. Would I be taken more seriously or treated with any more respect and kindness? What if I stop self-tanning and getting my nails done? Will I still be me? 

Who am I if not trying, if not striving so hard? 

I soon realized it was the same. Less. Less attention. Fewer comments. Nonetheless still there.

However, I realized it wasn't my beauty they preyed on but my weakness. My weakness in who I was. My weakness was that I cared what they thought of me. It screamed from my longing eyes, my dead bleach-blonde hair, and my starved body. Weakness screamed from my bones as I drank too much and ate far too little. I forced myself to run 8 miles around the track. They never gave me those labels or treated me that way because of my beauty. They said those things to me because I allowed them to.  I searched in them for validation that I wasn't worth it after all. That I was just a pretty face, that I was just a fleeting experience, that I wasn't created to accomplish big things like the rest. I worked so hard externally because internally I knew, they knew, I had lost, to the societal expectations and roles women are put into. I was the target so many men looked for.

So I had to figure out who scarlett was. Because what you truly look like to others is so little about your physical. You are the projection of who you are on the inside. 

I have to admit it was all-consuming at the time. The male gaze was all I seemed to care about. To motivate me to run on the treadmill I'd imagine how I'd be perceived when I walked into that bar and saw him. It was damn motivating. However, at some point, it switched for me. I realized running, exercising, and eating healthy made me confident. 

I started to read books. Books that inspired me and made me feel seen. I started eating foods I loved. Real peanut butter and sandwiches. 

I rewrote what success meant for me. I began seeing that academics are not where I feel motivated to accomplish or feel a sense of reward. I realized that I was meant to do grand things in my way.

For me, that means traveling, building strong relationships and community wherever I end up, making an impact on family and children's lives, making my friends and family feel seen by showing up for them or throwing them a party, and hopefully putting all these things together and opening my own business where women, families, and children can feel supported, celebrated, and seen. 

While I hope to always be a pretty face. I now see that I can also be so much more. As long as I refuse to give into the weakness that it is up to anyone but me what my life is destined to become. 

What I find beautiful now: