I have never considered myself as
“pretty”. I mean, I know I'm not horrible to look
at because small children don't start crying when they see me but as
a general observation of myself, I have always considered myself
quite plain. I have dishwater brown hair (and yes, that's what I grew
up knowing the name of my blondish-brown hair to be) and I have hazel
eyes that are neither blue nor green nor brown. I am not tall at only
five feet four inches and I have about twenty excess pounds that I
seem to be stuck with no matter what I eat and how much, or little,
exercise I incorporate into my life. I am just plain old me.
As a rather plain person, I am also not
photogenic...at all! I can count possibly eight or ten pictures from
my entire life that I actually like. My sister, on the other hand, is
quite the opposite. Although she and I look a lot alike, or so we're
told, she is very photogenic. I very rarely see a photo of her that
isn't great. Whether she is dressed up for a night on the town
or has no make-up on and her hair is pulled into a ponytail, the
camera seems to find only the good things about her and displays them
quite nicely.
This is why a recent event took me by
surprise. To know a little more about this, you have to know I am
married to the most amazing man I have ever known. He treats me with
respect, love and devotion. He lets me know on a regular basis that I
am the “queen of his universe” (his words, not mine) and
that he loves me beyond measure. And I believe him. I believe that
when he tells me I am beautiful, it's because in his eyes, I truly
am. He sees me as no one has ever seen me before. He has seen me at
my best and my absolute worst and has chosen to still love me and let
me know he thinks I am beautiful.
I often joke with him that I wish I
could see me through his eyes. Then something amazing happened...I
did! Well, sort of. You see, like most people these days, we are the
owners of smart phones which means a camera is readily available. I
am most likely to snap a picture of one of my grandkids or a place we
are visiting or even the food we are about to consume...and yes, I
post them on FB for my friends to see. My dear husband, uses his much
the same way...except for one tiny difference. He also likes to snap
pics of me at the most inopportune times. Whether I am getting ready
for work, preparing dinner or just hanging out with friends
somewhere, he is likely to snap a pic at any given moment. It wasn't
until recently that I truly grasped just how often those moments
occur.
After seeing a pic he had snapped of
me, I wanted to update my FB profile and thought that picture would
work nicely. Instead of selecting that one pic and emailing or
texting it to myself, I connected his camera to my laptop and
downloaded all of his pictures...all nine-hundred plus! As I
scrolled through them and started deleting random pics, I came across
several of myself that I never even knew he had taken. That's not
what surprised me though. What really surprised me was how many of
them that I actually liked. They were mostly candid shots of
me around the house or out and about and totally oblivious to the
fact that he was practicing his photography skills. For the first
time in my entire life, I looked at myself through his eyes...or at
least the closest I could come.
I'm not sure why this made a
difference. Maybe I was just in a really good mood that day and felt
really good about myself in general; maybe it's all of the positive
affirmations we have been practicing lately; or maybe, just maybe, I
have finally come to accept that despite years of being told I was
fat or that someone else was prettier than me or having every single
flaw pointed out, I have finally accepted myself for who I am and
have come to love the person I have become. Whatever the reason, I
cannot describe to you what it feels like to look at a picture of
yourself and really, truly like what you see. Will every
picture experience be like
this going forward? I have no idea. What I do know however, is that I
will no longer be so critical of myself. I had years of someone else
pointing out all of my flaws, starting with my own father, so from
now on I will make a point of looking at myself as my husband
does...as someone who is beautiful and worthy of the love that fills
my life every single day. It truly is amazing.
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