Beauty

I love the way my curls look in silhouette.

It’s just beginning to hit me that this isn’t an ugly duckling phase and that I’ll never be as stunning or model-esque as either of my sisters. And I am perfectly fine this because this is the kind of person I want to be:

-One whose laugh attracts attention, not because it comes from a gracefully arched neck or is high and charming, bringing to mind visions of crystal-cut handbells and babbling brooks, but because it is loud and obnoxious and garners dirty looks in crowded restaurants. The kind of laugh belonging to a person who is too busy enjoying the joke to give any kind of worry about propriety or good manners or anyone else existing outside of the buzz of the moment.

-One whose feet are always cracked and calloused, with ragged, short fingernails and deep moons of dirt underneath. I have to trim my nails almost once a week and if I forgot, they remind me by ripping off at the slightest provocation in the most painful and bloody manner. I like the slightly guilty pleasure that accompanies sinking my toes into a muddy garden bed. I’m a firm proponent of tidy but I believe nothing good can come of too much clean.

-One who proposes split-second decisions sitting at a traffic light, feeling the beginning of monotony. Park swings at midnight. Ice cream at 2 a.m. A middle-of-the-afternoon matinee movie. Book buying at Half-Price. Learning the harmonica.  Picnicking by the river. Moving to Montana. 

-One who is comfortable in the night-in monotony of pizza-and-a-movie-with-a-good-book-in-the-bathtub-if-I’m-feeling selfish.

I think the life that I lead as an Interesting Person rather than a Beautiful One is infinitely more satisfying and enjoyable but sometimes it just gets so exhausting I commit the cardinal sin of wishing I was pretty, that I could coast by on my high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes rather than an animated storytelling of that-one-time-we-…