Sorry Not Sorry For That Photo in Your Feed: God Makes You Beautiful Enough.
- Sep 25, 2015
- 7 min read
Updated: Feb 17, 2022
When I’m super passionate about something, I don’t know how to turn it off. Growing up, my personality was described as “feeling things more deeply than most.” What I now considered a gift wasn't presented as such. My thoughts at the time were, Why couldn’t I just be more even-keeled like the cool kids?? I can’t even tell you how many times I tried to be “a quiet person” just so I wouldn’t get into trouble. But the Quiet Me would last like a day, then I’d burst and be louder than ever. Quiet-Shy-Whispery Annie was a dream I had to let die. Personality transplants are not a thing.
This isn’t the post I planned for this week, but life happened to kick up a Passionate Issue and I just can’t turn it off. Or sleep. Because I’m having conversations in my head with people who will never read my blog or even care what I have to say. But it still, wont, go, away.
So here it goes. I just have to be loud for a second, even though the vulnerability here is going to hurt.
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Adult life is not always fun. You can't hide anymore, and you can't just go home and not get up for a couple days. Being an adult exposes all the ways you’re messed up and puts them out into the open. There are things about me that I’ve always known are not, um, “ideal”... but since I was the only one that knew them, it was cool. Cover that thing up, no one will know, and, ONWARD. I wanted to be NOT messed-up, after all. I wanted to just be a nice person to live life next to, because that’s a nice thing.
But trouble will hit. And big pain from big trouble will make you want to fix things you never cared enough to fix before. I could either turn numb and try to become Quiet Annie for the rest of my life, literally just RUN AWAY, or.... deal with the thing causing pain in the first place. It sounds like an easy logical decision when you read that, but making logical, healthy decisions in the middle of intense pain is actually scientifically proven to be difficult (in case you needed any convincing). I did the numb thing first to deal with the pain (it lasted like a day - I’m not good at Numb), and even ran away once or twice... or three times... but eventually came to terms that I had to look this thing in the eye. So what was the not-true thing I believed was true that was dragging me under?
The same old same old thing all women have been told NOT to believe a million times, but still feel anyway:
How I look is directly related to my value as a human.
Blah. I cringe even writing that, because I’m not that girl. I know so deeply that this shouldn’t be my truth, and would’ve told you all the day long that my value comes from God and family and “who I am” (back before life started crumbling it was easy to say those things). I was a college-educated person after all - not a silly trophy-wife kind of girl. But oh my gosh: if you’re a woman who can go through life trouble, and NOT wonder, “if I was just prettier...” you are unfortunately in the minority. When mine hit, suddenly, I felt like the ugliest girl on the planet.
For me, feeling ugly was a kind of pain I had no idea how to deal with - there was nothing I could change about myself or “improve”. Of course there’s always something that could be perfect-er according to magazine covers, but I was at my target weight and fit enough, for me. So it was just a mind game then - FEEL PRETTY ENOUGH ANNIE. Cause that’s what intelligent women do. They feel ENOUGH.
But I didn’t anymore.
My way to fix life pre- stillbirth/marriage-trouble was to read a book about it, or read a blog about it (ohhh, the irony). I read about all the ways culture preys on women, about media and movies and the impossible standards placed on us all. I read about how the stats on a Victorias Secret model’s level of happiness is not in any way better than the average American woman’s - neither is the divorce rate. Being the most beautiful woman in the world will not make you safe, and I convinced my head it was true. But no one cares about those stats. We keep chasing physical beauty anyway, with billions of dollars, all over the world, always and forever. The message that this is our role and place in this world - to be physically beautiful objects - is everywhere you look, constantly. Even companies like Dove, who claim that “every body is beautiful” are still focusing on the fact that our outward appearance matters a whole heck of a lot.
So here’s why I’m all up in this topic this week: I was going through my Facebook feed yesterday and came across a photo of a woman an acquaintance had “Liked.” It was, what most would call, an inappropriate photo of a woman without legs who was modeling swimsuits, of all things. I mean, seriously world, can we NOT do that in my feed? Right? Seriously, can I get away from half-nakedness for like TWO SECONDS??). I looked at the description to see what kind of ridiculousness the post was about. I don’t even remember the description though cause the very first comment caught my attention...
“Well geez. Couldn’t she have done her nails for this shoot?”
Ohhhhh boy. Let me tell you something - I’m passionate and all, but my Passionate-Anger chip is the most impressive of my emotional bunch. After I read that, I forgot completely about being offended (while I maintain that the photo was not something I think should be on Facebook, only because I don’t think women should be paraded that way). What mattered more to me at the time, was that I suddenly saw this girl as me: I wondered... even without trauma and trial and horrible media... did she feel pretty enough? With her struggles and all that - did she? Without legs, without a closet full of shoes, without even the standard of human form... had she ever felt like she was enough? Did she feel beautiful now, seeing her photo? Maybe the fact that any company would *use* her to endorse their product was an ugly-cry moment for her - suddenly, was she enough? DID SHE FEEL ENOUGH? Her disability didn’t mean she wasn’t beautiful, because now a company said so, right? She was a model. And in a world of impossible standards and a culture that encourages constant competition between women’s bodies - the fact that she would be willing to try to feel pretty seemed so raw to me. I cried when these thoughts started pouring in. Yes, right after I hated the photo, it moved me to tears. Why?? Because here she was giving it all she had, trying so hard to feel beautiful, and the first comment was she wasn't pretty enough. Because... her nails weren’t done. HER NAILS WEREN’T DONE.
You guys. How could she have missed her nails...?
In a whirlwind of passionate emotion, I kind of let the commenter have it after that. And, my passion got me into trouble then, again, because this inappropriate photo showed up all over your feed too. While I’m sorry that that happened, it’s more of a “sorry-not-sorry” thing. I hate that women feel like objectifying themselves will heal their soul, because I know it wont - but this is what the world is teaching, and it's hard not to listen. Imagining her watching the comments roll in about her nails (there were many) was too much for me to handle. She WAS beautiful, and even in her disability, was more than enough. I suddenly saw more beauty in her than in all the perfect-bodied women who could only notice her nails. HER NAILS. Her nails weren’t done? Men, AND WOMEN, were irritated her nails weren't done?!?!
Here's my list of problems: pretty sure I'm manly cause I'm 5'9", have no hips and no curvy-ness. I'm too tall. I was the middle kid on the top riser in my hundreds-of-kids-school, standing next to all the boys forever. I will never cut my hair shorter than LONG because it's what makes me feel like a woman after all. I want it to be super-duper curly cause that is SUPER female, and I like that. I hate having dark hair because it makes my skin look Addams-Family-like. In college I went tanning every other day because I couldn't feel pretty without it. I have weird veins that stick out in my hands and make me look like I work out... my hands. My knees are too knobby-ish. When I laugh, I look dumb cause I get a double-chin. But can I just be more curvy already?
After months and months of feeling the pain of not being enough, I finally discovered how God can fulfill and convince me that who I am and how I look is *more than* enough. That every woman has a kind of beauty - outside and inside - that no other woman can offer. I’m not better because I’m pretty enough or not, I’m enough because I’m the only one that is pretty like I am. No one else is Annie-Cute (haaaaa. This is a thing I have to tell myself when a little small blonde comes by.) I have something no Victoria Secret model can offer. It’ll take far more than one blog post to cover that, because it isn’t easy, I know. I struggle daily to not let the way I dress and look become a perfectionist art, to just let go and know it isn’t about my nails being done. IT ISN’T ABOUT THAT. It’s still hard, and I think it always will be. But oh my gosh, there’s freedom there. I'm not competing against anyone, anymore. I never wanted to deal with my compulsion to need to look perfect before, because I NEEDED IT TO FEEL VALUED. But being forced to let go of that has created a peace that I’ve never had either.
Your nails, actually, DON’T HAVE TO BE DONE.
(If they are though, that's fun too :))
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