Aren't I Beautiful?

Entering the YMCA locker room this week, I heard a conversation between two young women.  I had to walked past them to get to a locker with a bench, so I wasn’t actually making an effort to listen.  

They were doing a lot of preening and couldn’t possibly have noticed I had to turn my body sideways to get by them as they flitted their feathers and checked beneath their wings for anything that might make them less desirable than the rest of the flock.

They stood by the large mirror with a counter where the hairdryers are located.  

“Does my butt look fat in these pants?  I want your honest answer. Do they?” This dark-haired, dark-eyed, beautiful, young woman had a frown on her face questioning her friend. 

The young woman who was no less than two feet taller than her, blond hair and thin as a soda straw,  said, “Yes, they do”.  (Well, I spoke too soon on the “Friend” label)  

There was silence.  Not a shower was flowing, not a toilet was flushing, no one was walking or talking—silence.

I was behind a stack of beige, metal lockers so I wasn’t able to see the reaction she had to her friend’s reply.

I got into my navy-blue swimsuit, grabbed my goggles, put a lock on my locker and before turning toward the pool I decided, “I better empty my bladder!” 

I walked past the young, dark-haired woman standing by the mirror.  She was alone now.  She was slowly turning herself around and craning her neck in order to see her butt in the mirror.  While she turned she pulled and pressed on her form-fitting, black, spandex, yoga pants.  

I saw her sad, devastated face magnified in the mirror.  

I went to the bathroom.  When I walked past her again she stood frozen, facing the mirror.  I don’t think she was seeing anything in the mirror.  Her eyes looked glazed over.  

“I wonder what she’s telling herself?” I thought.  My mind was screaming with all the words of wisdom I knew I could never share with this young woman.  Words that only can be heard from inside a person.  Words that might take decades to emerge from underneath the tears and frustration.  

“You asked the wrong question!” I wanted to cry to her.  “Aren’t I beautiful? is the question!”  

I imagined her head turning into the head of a housefly.  Overlarge eyes taking up most of her head.  Each eye trying to focus in on her reflection, but instead being inundated by thousands of images.  

Her girl friend’s eyes, her siblings’ eyes, her classmates’ eyes, her boyfriend’s eyes, her father’s eyes, her mother’s eyes, her grandparents’ eyes.  The eyes of her preteen-self, her diva-self, her social-media-self.….

Will she be almost sixty before she sees how gorgeous she is?  Does she have to waste so many hours of her life worrying about something subjective?  Do women need to spend most of their life in a ferris-wheel of negative self-judgements!  Why can’t they start young, moving on to more important self-assessments?  

I wish I would have asked myself these questions by the time I was fourteen.  

“Is my self-consciousness too strong? I want an honest answer.” 

“Is my self-love vessel too small?  Give it to me straight!”

“Is this really what I want or what everyone else wants? Don’t spare me the truth!”

Stroke by stroke, as I swam in the lap pool, I heard her words.  I also heard my own voice from the past,  “Do I have a big butt?” 

Then the my mind clears.  I visualize a woman sitting in oncology.  Maybe she’s waiting to hear her diagnosis. Maybe she’s losing her hair from getting chemo.  Or fighting to keep up her weight and strength to get through another round of treatments.  

She’s not asking anyone if her butt is too big.  She’s asking the real question, “Aren’t I beautiful?”