Am I pretty?
Yes I am, yes I am, yes I am.
Will the boys like me?
Of course, sure, yup.
Is my hair right? Is my skin soft? Do I smell like flowers and...whatever beautiful people are supposed to smell like?
My self-assurance ends with those final questions. I am eleven, right in the middle of those awkward years, getting ready for my first middle school dance.
I grew up in a suburb of Toronto and had attended an all girls' private school since I was four years old. I had never had any boys who were friends really, there were the occasional passings with fellows in my neighbourhood, but nothing long lasting.
So here I am. My hair is still haunting me with the lingering boy cut of the year previous, I don't have enough hormonal growth to given reason to the bra I' m wearing, and most pressingly, my three best friends and I seem to be having trouble with the fascinating genre of make up. All I want is to look beautiful, to be sexy enough for a guy to maybe, just maybe, ask me to dance. My hopes are high and my self-esteem is shot, I think the four of us are in the same boat, yet we cover up our nervousness with girlish squeals and laughter.
I've just arrived home. I feel so...ugly. After all of that preparation and build up and dreaming and hoping and wishing, no one asked me to dance. I think it was because I am too tall, all the boys are at least a half foot shorter than me. Or maybe because I got more eyeliner in my eye than I did around it. Or maybe I'm just not supposed to be pretty.
My house is filled with girls. I have seven of them over, all getting ready for the big opening dance of our grade 10 year at the boys' school best known for their attractive students. I'm a little more seasoned now, but the same questions storm through my head.
Do I look okay?
Yes, yes.
Am I wearing the right clothing?
I think so...
Is anyone going to ask me to dance this time?
I down a coke to try and get my confidence up.
I lie in bed once again after a night of constant disappointment. I know this shouldn't affect me that much, but I just can' t wrap my head around it. I' m not one of those large breasted girls who are willing to let it all hang out just so they can get any attention. Does that therefore equal out to rejection? I' m a good person and I have talents and a personality. Doesn' t that matter? Does anything I do really matter? Or will I still remain in this same sunken feeling of ugliness?
I have butterflies in my stomach. I' m about to play my own songs, by myself, in front of 300 people. I'm 16 now, nearing the end of grade 11, and have been writing for almost as long as I'd been going to those ridiculous dances, before I started boycotting them. My legs are shaking and my palms are so sweaty I have no idea how I'm going to keep ahold of my guitar. But as the call my name up to the stage, a sense of power comes over me. I strum the first few chords of my opening song and I can see my friends waving and smiling to me in the audience. My voice, lord knows where it came from, bursts out of me and I can feel everything I am pour out into the lyrics I have woven. Sadness, pain, love, joy, wonder all seem to be painted into the invisible tapestry that the audience devours. In my plain black tank and army boots I feel beautiful. I can feel my skin glowing, my hair shimmering in the light, all of my worries about that blasted eyeliner are gone because I know it simply doesn't matter. On stage, giving life to music, to my music, is where I create my beauty, and where the beauty of that creation shines through me. I barely need the ego boost that comes with the people coming up to me afterward, wanting to know who I am, where my music comes from. I have found my place. I have found my beauty.
So maybe I will never be that typical busty lady in the high heels, but really, I don't want to be. Beauty isn't, and can't, be defined by how many boys as you to dance or whether your makeup is just right. Beauty is finding who you are, finding your place, and sharing it with the world. It' s playing your music, it's writing your poem, it's completing some atrocious math equation that in the end finds a cure for a terminal disease. Beauty is your niche, your power, your desire. No one can tell you what your beautiful is, because half the beauty is in finding it out for yourself.