Beautiful

I don't compete well.

I can play darts or chess or a friendly game of baseball and have no big problems. My athletic and/or intellectual abilities are not sore points with me. I can lose in a fairly good natured way, although I must warn you I am a Scrabble Shark and I pop Triple Word Scores like Rush Limbaugh with a lifetime supply of OxyContin. I am confident with words. It doesn't bruise my ego at all to lose at pool or darts or chess or a backyard game of HORSE (The basketball variety), but I do avoid other women when I know available men will be present.

It is a sickness.

A friend of mine, who knows me only from the mommy set, invited me out for a beer with a single male friend of hers. I was feeling down and was in desperate need of some fun. We set out to meet him at a restaurant and, until the moment he arrived, I was drowning my sorrows in a beer and going over and over the same worrisome piece of bullshit that I trot out on such occasions when he walked in the door. It was like a switch flipped and I couldn't help myself. I was flirty, charming, witty and just the right amount of bawdy to make his eyes open wide but not enough to make him wish he had worn a cup. I can do that. It's a little talent that I have.

It isn't that he was my type or that I found him attractive beyond the ordinary. I just needed the attention. My friend was shocked because when I've told her that I behave this way she wouldn't believe me. She was laboring under the delusion that I was (am) Mary Poppins. She even calls me that from time to time. Well, Julie Andrews showed her tits in S.O.B. and I completely understand why she did it- beyond the fact that her husband directed the film.

I've always wished that I was beautiful. I'm no Labrador Retriever and I never have been. Even the assholes who tormented me throughout my school career would not be able to say that I was ever ugly. No. It was clear to me that my looks were not an issue other than the fact that there was always another woman who could turn heads better than I. Oh vanity thy name is woman! I longed to be the most beautiful woman in the room so I frequently conspired to be the ONLY woman in the room. At a certain point, this becomes difficult.

I just wanted to know what beauty FELT like. What would it be like to feel the entire truth of who you are- because even at a young age I had deduced that everyone is beautiful and that it is how a person feels about themselves that determines whether or not they can access their own beauty. It is just so much easier to fixate on the physical portion of beauty because that can be faked, to a certain extent. It's a cheap fix, but when you are desperate to feel yourself as worthy, rapt attention from a man or even just an appreciative glance can put a spring in your step. But it is just empty calories.

I wish I knew what it felt like to accept myself and feel lovely...to feel good about my intentions, my gifts, and my chipmunk cheeks all at the same time. What would it be like to look in the mirror and see the "flaws" as a sign of good living and fine craftsmanship instead of a grocery list of personal and professional failures?

I guess I always felt an expectation that I should have grown up to be "beautiful" and, in so many ways, I can't help but feel I've come up short and that I am a disappointment. Of course, I also know that the only real disappointment is that I don't treat myself with the same kindness, affection and forgiveness that I give to others. I can't think of anyone who would really wish this kind of torment on me. No one, that is, except me.

Being human is a difficult thing. I don't recommend it to anyone.