Life
What’s Wrong with Being Young and Beautiful?
Self-Love is an act of sisterhood
The young woman behind the cash register handed me my receipt, her nails reminiscent of the kind of art one could see at the MoMA.
“Your nails are stunning.”
There were actual opalescent bows on a couple. Literal art-in-motion.
The girl smiled and shrugged, the gesture of pleased discomfort.
“Thanks. It’s just because it’s my birthday tomorrow. I normally wouldn’t do something like this.”
Just because…those two strung words spoke volumes.
“Happy Birthday!”
Another gushing smile and shrug.
“Thanks. I’m turning 20.”
My son’s age. The Age of Possibility. The early chapters of life when we feel wet behind the ears, unaware of our power.
I didn’t see a stranger behind that cashier’s counter. I saw Youth. I saw the reflection of my former self in her shrugs and gushing smiles.
I ached to reach out to this sweet girl and share a secret no one tells us when we are two decades on this spinning planet.
“You don’t need a reason to get your nails done. Life itself is a reason to get your nails done. Because you enjoy getting your nails done. Good for you!”
She seemed to stand up a hair taller and nodded.
“Thank you. I really needed to hear that. I just broke up with my boyfriend, and he was always making me feel guilty about treating myself.”
It felt like I was playing with Time’s portal: affecting this sweet girl before me and the former me at 20 years young as well.
Women and Time
The young woman in that store struck both a maternal and sisterhood chord with me. I was once that girl who needed to explain and threw that overused adverb just around to assuage discomfort:
“I’m just his girlfriend.”
“I’m just helping.”
“I’m just a stay at home mom.”
Then there were the times I struggled to treat myself and wracked with guilt, I said things like:
“It’s just because they didn’t want it, so they gave it (whatever IT was) to me.”
or
“It’s just because I had a coupon.”
And compliments? Geesh…if I received one of those?! I had to throw my power away with:
“It’s just an old lipstick.”
or
“It’s just because I got a good night’s sleep.”
And then Time passes. We get tired. Tired of using words like just and because to make ourselves fold in like a walking comma.
Well…not every woman matures into this realization. Age does not automatically transcribe wisdom.
And not every woman was once that twenty-something struggling with self-esteem and a need to be accepted at all costs.
But age does offer the opportunity to grow, to actively choose to drop the “just because” verbiage from our mouth and mindset.
Life is so very short. To waste a second more of it explaining and justifying to please another is sad.
Age brought me the awareness that I matter (alert: we all do). Not in a I-don’t-care-what-you-think manner; in an appreciation for me…in an honoring of what I think and feel.
With over fifty years behind me, I see the figurative sand through Time’s hourglass.
I’m on a mission to replace Fear with Love…to replace hiding with embracing.
