Who Beholds

I was having a brief internet convo earlier about how I don't carry the sense of entitlement that some pretty/attractive people do b/c I didn't grow up being told that I was attractive. Like you know...attractive people just get free shit sometimes, so due to conditioning they start to think they are entitled to privilege.

As a child, growing up around all whites, I didn't fit their standard of beauty and was rarely recognized as pretty/attractive. Even when I was around blacks, they made me feel too light or too unblack to be pretty/attractive.

Well - ya girl grew up. However, the scars are still there.

Upon re-reading the message that birthed the "teenage OMG squeal," post...I had to pause. I had validation that I was pretty... from somebody that I put on a pedastal during the time when I felt ugliest in my life. His validation meant more than any compliment on my physical appearance that I've received in a long time. That 10 year old girl with no self esteem finally got the compliment that she wanted back in the early 90s. For a moment, I bought into the notion that, perhaps I am more attractive than I give myself credit only because he said so. I should've felt that without his vindication.

Gots to thinking - beauty is in the eye of the beholder...BUT ARE YOU THE BEHOLDER, OR ARE OTHERS.

for me...I think others, at least for a long time. Even now, I believe it mostly b/c of reinforcement from others, not from within. Hopefully I'll be the beholder without reinforcement one day.