TIVOLI JENSEN

I have a bad habit, and I want to come clean about it so that we can all stop doing it.  I feel terrible about it, and I wish that I could stop– but this thing happens before I can even think to stop it.

August is two [but almost three, as she reminds me] years old.  She has no idea what ‘pretty’ means.  She has no idea what ‘skinny’ means.  But still, I tell her.

“Auggie, you are so skinny!”
“August, you are so beautiful.”
“Oh!  Auggie!  You are so cute!”

I want August to know what ‘intelligent’ means.  I want her to know that her mind is her most wonderful attribute in life– not the width of her waist, not the curl of her hair, not the straightness of her teeth.  The truth is, I can tell that August (and Eliott, but we’re talking about female projections of beauty, so more on him later) is extremely bright.  She can sing her ABC’s, she can count to freaking nineteen.  She’s memorized movie scripts, she continually has philosophical comments to share (I kid thee not).  But, when encountered with this little ball of feisty wonder, all people comment on is how pretty she is.  How I should lock her up until 16.

When I was young, the older women in my life would constantly comment on their bodies, saying things like “Ugh, I look so big today,” “This will hide the fat,” or even “I’m ashamed of my body.”

So, as a young girl already fostering an eating disorder, I did what any others would do and have done: I searched for beauty.  Not internal beauty, no, that’s what they told the ugly girls, I searched for appearance beauty.  I desired for people to tell me how beautiful I was.  If someone called me ‘smart’ I took offense.  If someone said how gorgeous I was, I would smile, and even though that was all I wanted to hear, inwardly, I’d think, “Liar.”

I’m not lying when I tell August she is beautiful.  She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.  But, I do not want her to ever think that her value is measured by how big her eyes and how thin her wrists are.  She doesn’t need to look like a Disney Princess.  She doesn’t need to be a neuro-physicist.

What she needs, and what I desire for her, is that she would care and love herself, much more than I ever did or will.

It’s everyone.  I don’t want anyone to think I value their appearance over their personality.  I stopped telling people when I thought they’d lost weight.  Instead, I made a point to ask their opinion on something, complimenting their mind’s beauty rather than their lack of extra space in the room.

I’m still not great at this, though, and to be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever perfect it.

But I’m trying– because I want every person in my life to know that they are more important to me than how they look.  They are important for not what they are, but who they are.