Learning to Love Her

Look at her. Isn’t she beautiful? Stunning. Look at those eyes - so big, so blue. Her hair is so long; just gorgeous. She could be a model.

I grew up being told I was beautiful. They fawned over my long hair, and how it flowed down my back like honey; or my big, blue eyes - doe eyes they called them. Nobody told me I was smart, or funny, or kind. I was just pretty.

One might think that being told I was beautiful, being fawned over like that, would make me vain. It didn’t. It taught me that my value was in my looks; that being pretty was all I had to offer. It made me insecure. My self-worth and my beauty were one and the same, completely intertwined.

Don’t get me wrong, every little girl should be told she’s beautiful, but there was more to me than those big, blue eyes. There was a little person behind those eyes; a little girl who needed to be told she was more than just pretty. She needed to believe she was worth something.

My appearance was just genetics I’d inherited, it wasn’t really me. Not only was it not me, it felt like it wasn’t mine. When my mum was a little girl, her mother chopped her hair off into a pixie cut. She hated it. She swore that if she ever had a little girl, she would never cut her hair; she would have hair like a princess. I became that little girl.

The expectations of how I was supposed to look, how I was supposed to behave and who I was supposed to be, just kept coming.

Heavy is the head that bears the princess hair.

Everyone had an opinion, but what about my opinion? How did I want to look? Who did I want to be?

I learned to look outside myself for the answers. My appearance became a manifestation not of my inner self, but of others’ expectations of me. I donned their masks and hid behind them.

When I was little, it was beyond my awareness, but the older I got, the heavier that princess hair felt. People stopped fussing over me like they did when I was a little girl; I stopped getting the external validation I needed to feel beautiful. Valued.

I didn’t trust myself to make my own decisions; to know what was best for me. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted. I had lost myself somewhere along the way. I lacked the belief within myself that I had anything to offer. I felt worthless.

I was plagued by comparison and I became my own worst critic. I entered myself into imaginary competitions with other girls; I admired all they had and took stock of all I lacked. A bad hair day, a blemish, would send me into a self-esteem spiral. I held myself to a high standard, a standard I could never meet. I was never enough. I resented the girl in the mirror, the girl I had become, and to me, she wasn’t beautiful at all.

It’s something I struggle with, even now at almost 30, the need to be “beautiful” is deeply ingrained in my psyche. I still crave the validation… tell me I’m pretty, so I’ll believe I’m worth something.

It’s why I’m here - I broke my bones to please them, and they met me with indifference. No more. I’m writing to un-become, so I can find myself, so I can just be.

I’m stripping off their masks, one-by-one until the girl in the mirror and my inner self are one and the same. I’m teaching that little girl inside that she is so much more than just pretty - she is smart, and funny, and kind. She is worthy. I’m learning to love her in all her mess and all her magic.

The moral of my story is simple: tell little girls (and little boys) they’re beautiful, but don’t forget to tell them they’re smart, and funny, and kind too. Make them feel valued and worthy; teach them to love and believe in themselves; and most of all, let them become themselves.