“Live your life and forget your age.” -Norman Vincent Peale
This is what women do: they criticize their looks and age and weight and everything about themselves all.the.time. Don’t ask me how I know.
When I first saw this huge image pop up in a sneak-preview of the wedding photos, I thought, “Well there are the bags under my eyes. I was still in my sweats. I didn’t have my mascara on” and etc. Dumb. I know. Very vain.
My mom saw it and said to me “Who is that old woman with all those wrinkles?” She is 73 and has yet to recognize her loveliness. Tredessa had already told me that she loved the intensity of the lines on her grandma’s face, the clearness of her features.
And all I could think in response to my mom was, “I so want to be like that woman.” I love her! I love her vivaciousness and love for life and picture-taking and horses and her family and her encouraging ways and deep-felt love for people and the belief in the best of them all. And if the lines on her face were a type of braille, they would read of her unwavering belief in me and love no matter what since the day I was born – even before.
We attack ourselves. We speak badly of ourselves. We wouldn’t let first-graders talk about each other the way we talk about ourselves. Stupid. Waste. of. Time.
Me and my mamala…
I have her nose. I have her blue eyes. I even have two, deep, furrowed lines between my brows exactly like hers. And I wanna be just like her when I grow up. I do. She is the most beautiful to me.
First glance while reading the post….I thought you were one of your daughters. :)
I so agree with what you wrote. I recently went to a retreat and our pastor’s wife had lots and lots of antique mirrors. She spoke on how we see ourselves, how others see us and how God sees us. At one point in the prayer time she was telling how beautiful we each were and for the first time in my life my thoughts didn’t argue back. One of the very very few times I could entertain and even embrace the thought of myself as beautiful. But the secret was I was looking through God’s eyes at myself. I long for women everywhere to be able to see themselves this way.
Beautiful. Both of you. And your whole family carries on that legacy. Not from what is one the outside, but from what’s on the inside shining through.