"You're Beautiful!"

I said that today to a complete stranger and yet, I cannot say it to myself.

I need to see the reflection my husband sees because I KNOW, I am confident, he doesn't see what I see.

I tend to get ready last minute to go anywhere.  Any where my usual grubbies, don't apply, perhaps aren't good enough.  I do that because I know I HAVE TO go.  It leaves me limited choices by time restraints alone AND because 9 times out of 10, I will hate what I see.  So much so I will cancel what my plans are.  If I get dressed so late that I can't cancel then....I have to make do.

Today I tried on jeans I forgot I even owned.  I forgot because I shop shop shop all the time, hoping I will find something that looks so great, it will be happiness in a bag.  The jeans were too tight.  They were not happiness in denim.  I grabbed the next pair, a size up.  They were too tight.  Now I am finding misery in denim.  I tried to blame it on my period, then the drugs I have to take, then my parents, my husband.....finally when that was done, I looked around my huge bedroom and saw shit, clothes, everywhere.  I was fed up and embarrassed.  I grabbed an outfit I knew I loved and threw it on alongside a fantastic pair of biker boots.  I should note they are perhaps 1 of 4 biker boots I own because..."do these great fucking boots distract you from my chubbiness?", and I left.

On the drive I cranked up the tunes and tried to stop thinking about what had just happened.  I looked in the mirror of my car, suddenly my chin was double the size it seemed before.  Yep, that's a double chin I surmised.  The zit that was barely there was now the size of my house and my face looked pasty, like flour.  Excellent. 

I made a quick stop at the local store/post office to pick up a package and thought; "Well maybe there's something I ordered in this box that will magically make me delicious?  Doubt it". 

By the time I got to town, (I had a hair appointment), I was early so I wasn't hurried by any means.  I found myself stuck behind someone doing 22km/hr in the town.  22km/hr?  Are you fucking kidding me?  I could see it was an older man.  I tried to breathe.  I tried to remember I was a happier me on new bi polar drugs.  I tried the meditation, be kind, don't judge, tricks I learned.  I tried it all.  Two stop lights later I was able to get into a lane beside him and finally pass him.  As I sat next to him at the light I didn't utter a word.  I didn't honk.  I didn't flash him the bird.  And I was beside him which meant I hadn't driven up onto the trunk of his car with the front of my truck.  I had done it.  I remained somewhat calm.  And I wasn't being mean.  The resulting adrenaline rush was so bad though I actually had to take a small valium pill to calm down.  I was on the edge, right there on the edge, of no return from anger.  But I didn't fall off the edge.  I cannot tell you how pleased I was with myself.

The valium started to kick in about ten minutes later and by then I had LL Cool J's, "Let me Clear my Throat" blasting in the car.  I was seat dancing my little heart away and the almost horrific car accident I imagined earlier was all but forgotten, thank god.   My hand was sore as I had punched the steering wheel a time or two, but the man, clueless.  He never got his "what for".  I kept it from him.  Progress!!!!!  Now ten minutes later I was grooving in my car.  That man will never know how lucky he was.  I can be a mean bitch.  But I just kept thinking, "he isn't why you are mad, he isn't why you are mad, he isn't why....."

Many know, I have bi polar disorder.  Slight to little mania, no hallucinations.  Mostly low.  But this wasn't bi polar.  This all came from, every ounce of it, self loathing.  "He isn't why you are mad". I hated getting dressed and my appearance THAT much, I had no patience for a sweet old man going for a drive.  Thankfully I know/knew that, and handled it but in the throws of a manic or depressive episode, the outcome may have been different.  I am working hard every day to understand it, manage it, use strength and tools to get through "throws of it" as I say. 

I pulled into my hair appointment rocking out to LL and ready to go.  Fucking hell, a mirror!  I have to sit and stare at myself for the next however long!  DAMN IT.  No I don't, I have my IPAD.  *clapping* YAY.  Let the games begin.  The hairdresser even got into it.  I brought the IPAD for that very reason, and that reason alone.  Not to have to look at myself in the mirror anymore. 

None of this is being very kind to myself is it????

Maybe if I keep saying it, it will happen?

After my hair appointment where I had lighter highlights put back into a recently darkened head of hair and an amazing ton of layers I headed off to Giant Tiger.  I hadn't been to one of these stores before this year.  No one told me about them. RUDE!  I am kind of an addict now.  I love the damn place.  I can get pretty cool shirts and tracks for my step daughter and there's a plus size section every once in awhile I get something faboo for next to nothing.  And then there's like regular household stuff and food.  It's like Target in the USA but much smaller and different.  Okay there are not the same at all but maybe a little?  LOL.

I rounded the corner of an aisle with my new hair blowing in the wind (wait, that's a lie, I was inside after all).  I rounded the corner and two lovely gals in their 70s, if I had to guess, were blocking the aisle.  One had her back to me, the other straight to me.  The one with her back to me got the *nudge* from her shopping pal and turned to apologize and I actually caught my breath.  She was beautiful.  Yes, she was 70 and wrinkled.  May have even been a smoker there were enough wrinkles but beyond that, through that, I saw sheer beauty.  I doubt she was a smoker now that I think of it because her skin glowed right through those silly age wrinkles.  There were no age spots to define her age, just the well earned creases of life.  Her eyes were piercing blue, "azure" I guess you would say.  All around her eyes was the creamiest, luminescent skin I've seen.  Like the stars that put on the powder under their eyes and get called out for it because they forget to "blot".  She blotted but I couldn't see any makeup.  She had rosy cheeks, in peach.  Again, I couldn't see blush.  No shimmer just luminescent.  And her lips hadn't done the wrinkle shrink that tends to happen with age.  They weren't trout lips, not pumped plump.  They were hers and almost stained in a soft pink.  Her hair was a pixie cut, messy, like Sharon Stone's for example.  She was my height, probably 130 pounds if I had to guess. just perfect if you ask me.

  This woman resembles her but needs a pixie cut and more real life wrinkles and bigger more beautiful eyes.

I thought to myself, "don't say anything you fool, she will think you're a freak.  People don't do this stuff".  Then I thought of a friend Tracey who wrote about an acquaintance she told was beautiful.  A man no less, and out of nowhere kind of.  She loved his face so she told him so.  But she knew him at least.  I got just passed these two gals and turned and blurted, "I am sorry, I need to tell you, I think you are just beautiful".  "Pardon me", she said, looking at me very quizzically.  "You're stunning", I said.  "Thank you" she offered with that strange look still in her face.  So I said "I wasn't going to say anything but I had to, your skin, your eyes, you are just really very beautiful".  As I rounded the corner I looked to her friend and said "as are you".  And I heard from my beauty, "I don't think anyone has ever said that to me".  To which I replied, "they should have". now with my back to her  It ended with her saying, "I thought you were gonna ask me to donate money, buy something, anything other than just that.  You are lovely". *smile*

I still felt a little awkward the rest of my time in the store.  Good but awkward.  I felt like they must thought me weird and creepy for just offering that up out of nowhere.  I found myself talking to anyone so my two gals saw me as "chatty".  When I got to the cashier, I said hello and offered to bag everything. I had already taken all the clothes items off the hangers and handed them to her.  When she got to ringing in the clothes I offered to do all the folding and bagging.  She was very surprised at this.  Always amazes me.  The store was busy, why can't, why wouldn't, why wouldn't you, bag your own stuff?  Just as I was about to walk away from her she handed me a 25% coupon for a friends and family sale happening this coming Sunday.  Not only do I get their prices, I get 25% more off because she now considered me a "friend".  And just because I helped bag my own stuff.

Once I got to my car and got settled I wondered why the fuck I was feeling so awkward about telling someone she was beautiful. I realized it's because we never do it, see it, or hear it.  And we should. 

So go on out there and tell someone they are beautiful today, perhaps even yourself.   And tell me about it.  Make MY day.  Let's start a trend of telling people the things we think, if they are nice things that is.  Remember what Momma told you, "if you haven't got something nice to say, shut the hell up".  Wait a minute.  Is that why no one says nice things anymore?  No one has anything nice to say?  Oh....how I hope not.