Beautiful

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how many time have we heard this refrain. Beauty encompasses so many traits that it defies easy definition. Beauty is the sum of it’s parts and is not limited by physical manifestations. To me beauty includes the mind and the willingness to share a life no matter the challenges. Beauty include the imagination to perceive a life beyond today, the right now, the mundane; in sickness and health. Real beauty lies beyond the excitement of youth, the beginnings of a mature love made for the long haul. People are molded by their surroundings and by nature, by their families and it shapes their character and the ways they view the world about them.
I have know women who have been terribly scarred by their past lives. At the hands of stranger and worse by the hands of those who were supposed to love them. Yet their character shine through the suffering they’ve endured. It’s these traits, the sum total of the history they carry with them in their day to day lives and how they interact with that history that’s fascinating. Some take a lifetime to heal and to find peace in their lives at last. That is a difficult history to over-write and it takes a loving kind of friend to bring out trust again. To work with them to learn to live with that pain and those memories.

Then too there are the women who have been scarred physically who have suffered the ravages of a life threatening disease and medication. These women are the hardest to heal because the attack is so fresh and the wounds so deep. Consider that women want to feel pretty and youthful, almost beautiful though few will admit to this. It begins around thirty, the wolf whistles that come too infrequently, the admiring glances as they enter a room, the dreaded Ma’am from young men. It’s hard for a woman to adjust to the reality of advancing age, that youth is fleeting by it’s very nature. Couple that with a devastating illness that prematurely forces a young woman to see her life as possibly cut short. Many of us suffer from these afflictions but we men don’t have to feel pretty and feminine.
When I had my stroke I knew that a real dividing line had been pasted, that I was firmly on the other side now. But I had a chance to prepare for advancing age, I could see all the signs around me of diminished youth and vigor. Not to make myself older than I am but no one was holding doors for me yet. But after I passed that line it all changed in an instant. First I reasoned that I was handicapped and all could see, the truth took awhile to settle. But again I was in my late fifty’s and one could see the writing on the walls. My self-esteem took a direct hit, my self-confidence too. But no one was expecting me to feel pretty and youthful and flirty, a girly girl. I was allowed to be my age, cankerous and sometimes petty it all came with the territory.

Medication is not my friend, I am on a lot of drugs and not the good kind. Medication alters my moods and most days of my life it sets them. I’m on a anti-anxiety medication, there are times I don’t feel I need it, then I try to get off. Or times that I leave my refills too late and I can’t get them and I see how my blood-pressure rises or I’m angry about something. I no longer feel I am in control of my life, that the day to day business of my life is controlled by something beyond me. That control is something that I’ve ceded in order to prolong the quality of my survival. I’m not particularly happy about that but the medication overrides any concerns. But at least no one expects me to be pretty.

This is dedicated to my beautiful friend Lin von B.