Like most people in American society, I struggle with beauty.

What is it? Do I have it? Do others have it? Does it matter if someone is beautiful? What does beauty affect? Why does everyone make such a big deal about it? Why can’t I stop thinking about it? Why does it keep affecting the way I act, what I buy, and how I feel?

When I think of beauty in my childhood, the first thing I remember is going to museums. All the women in famous paintings or sculptures were curvy. I saw their thick thighs, stomach folds, large breasts, and wanted to look like that.

Turns out, I was not genetically pre-disposed to meet such goals. I was 5’8” by the age of 12 and probably 18 years old before I made it over 120 lbs. I was stick and bones. I couldn’t gain weight despite the fact that I ate like a 14-year old boy, which I also looked like with no boobs, no butt, and no curves.

To make matters worse, I had braces and glasses. Looking back on that time, I remember loving how I looked. The braces were annoying, but I accepted them. I thought my glasses were awesome (current self does not agree). Other than the fact that my jeans were always either too short in length or too big in the waist, I thought I was stylish and ready to go.

My first memory of feeling self-conscious about the way I looked was in middle school. I was 11 and my friend asked me why my lips were always so dry. Ever since then, I have always carried chapstick with me and I apply it obsessively. Though I have gotten less self-conscious about dry lips since then, it is probably still one of the things I most worry about when it comes to my daily look. I don’t totally freak out anymore if I don’t have chapstick on me, but that’s largely because I almost always have it on me or am near a store where I can buy some. When I leave the house, my little saying that I recite as I’m walking out the door to make sure I have everything is: “Money, phone, ID, chapstick, keys.” (You may notice it rhymes.)

Also at 11 (I didn’t realize how defining of a year that was), I started to get made fun of for not wearing a bra. In the locker room, we would change for Physical Education (PE) and when I took my shirt off, I was topless, whereas the other girls were still covered by bras. One friend made a big deal out of it every time:

“Oh my gosh, Jackie! Cover up! Why don’t you wear a bra?”

“Because I have no boobs.”

“But you’re naked.”

In math class, another friend told me she could see the shape of my nipples through my shirt. She whispered it to me as if it were something I wouldn’t want others to hear, something I should hide. So I did. I started wearing bras before I even had anything that needed support.

It wasn’t really until the age of 16 that I started to be disappointed with my lack of curves. Until then, I was certainly jealous that my other friends who were girls actually had something to fill their bras, but I mostly just felt left out. Around 16, I started looking in the mirror and wishing I was looking at something different.

My desire to not look like I did was definitely impacted by, surprise surprise, more comments in the locker room.

I didn’t go to the high school my middle school fed into, so along with new hormones (which affected my emotions for years before it affected my physical development) came a whole new batch of girls staring at my body before PE. This time though, the comments were different.

“Oh my gosh, you’re so skinny; you make me feel fat.”

“Wow, I can’t even change in front of you.”

“You make me feel bad about myself.”

I was voted the nicest person in my senior class. Also, I’m not a psychopath, and I may be a bit of an empath. Literally, the last thing I wanted to do to anyone was make them feel bad, embarrassed, ashamed, etc. But I did every time I took my shirt off.

I know now that’s not my fault, but an undeveloped 14 year-old brain doesn’t understand that. So I felt embarrassed about being skinny. It made people feel bad AND I wasn’t beautiful like the women in the museum paintings.

Who was I supposed to tell this to? Females in America who grew up with women in magazines being photoshopped to look thinner? The girls in my grade who wanted to be skinny like me? My friends who were throwing up their lunches out of fear of gaining weight?

No one would understand or care or believe that I hated being skinny. No one. And the only thing worse than feeling ashamed is feeling like your shame is not valid.

At 18, I started to grow into the body I had always wanted. The “Freshman Fifteen” looked good on me. Then, 5 years later, depression and injury pushed my weight to the very top of the healthy range for my height. I no longer fit into my clothes and had to purchase a whole new wardrobe.

With my weight gain, I finally looked like the women in the famous paintings from my child hood. By this time though, I had been fully affected by America’s standard of beauty, which I think Tina Fey describes best in her book, Bossypants:

Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. 

Tina Fey

All that to say, the stomach roles of yesteryear were no longer something I wanted. And let me tell you, when you get a Jamaican dance hall ass and doll tits from quick weight gain, you do not also get the abs of a lesbian gym owner nor Michelle Obama’s glorious arms.

So that experience definitely threw me off. For 23 years, my body was flattered by elongating it. But now it didn’t look long, it looked wide. My boobs got so big that my bra choices decreased immensely. The bras I could choose from no longer included the demi cups I had to wear with my low/plunging tops. So if I didn’t want to be showing bra, I had to wear tops with higher necklines. And that little butt that provided a little mystery in a short skirt was now a bedonk that fell out of the skirts that no longer fit around my waist anyway. And probably the hardest change of all for me: my flat stomach that I had flaunted in sports bras and crop tops was now bloated and bulging and something I wanted to hide.

I decided to deal with all the change with this perspective: I was still super hot.

Once I got clothes that fit, that were cut to flatter my new shape, I was able to enjoy my big boobs, thick thighs, and new booty. I found a way to appreciate the things I had always wanted and had never been physically able to have before now. There were of course things I missed about my previous shape, and that gave me a good appreciation of the shape I had gotten in the habit of hating. It also reminded me of the following.

Beauty is subjective as hell.

In the same way that some people prefer blondes over brunettes, some people prefer tall over short and vice versa. For some people, it is worth a little belly to have a thick body everywhere else. Some people even genuinely are attracted to more belly, despite what most ads imply or teach. Some people like small boobs, small eyes, and small feet. Some people like big noses, big hands, and big mouths. Some people are attracted to knees and others to intelligence. So in the end?

We are all just a bunch of weirdos trying to find a compatible weirdo. If one person finds you unattractive, ugly, or plain, it doesn’t mean you are. You are and will be different to everyone around you. If you base your self-image on how others view you, you’ll get whiplash.

So what is beauty?

Beauty is a combination of qualities that is found to be aesthetically pleasing. AKA beauty is super vague, totally subjective, always changing, and whether or not people see it in us is – in the end – totally out of our control.

Do I have it?

Yeah, I do. I think I’m beautiful. My boyfriend thinks I’m beautiful. People in Europe tend to find me more beautiful than people in the USA, which is an unimportant trend I’ve observed that, practically speaking, affects nothing. Some people do not find me beautiful. Some people found me beautiful in high school. Some people found me beautiful at my heaviest. Some people prefered my hair when it was long or red, my face with makeup, my legs in heels, or my boobs in a push up bra. Personally, I prefer my flat stomach, thick thighs, and – hilariously – miss my small boobs. The way my body works though, I can’t have those all at the same time. So I will do what is best for me, my body, and my mind to be healthy. What my body looks like when I’ve done that is what I will accept. I will appreciate the parts of my body that look like I prefer them to and love them as much as the parts that don’t. And I will love every part of me regardless of how it makes others feel.

Are others beautiful?

Yes. I think others are beautiful. Sometimes I think that they are more beautiful than me. And I will still love myself exactly the way I am.

Does it matter if someone is beautiful?

There is one person on this Earth who I think it matters whether or not they are beautiful: whoever I choose to spend my life with (check!). I do not believe it is shallow to want that. I believe it is shallow to disrespect someone or think less of them or assume that no one else will find them beautiful just because you don’t find them beautiful. But when it comes to us choosing what we want to open our eyes to every morning for the rest our lives, I think it only makes sense that we would choose a masterpiece. The real beauty in that, of course, is that a “masterpiece” means something different to all of us.

What does beauty affect?

A lot. Like, a lot a lot. There are studies upon studies on how people are perceived and treated based on their appearance. Sometimes it’s intentional, sometimes it’s subconscious. It also changes from place to place depending on each society’s values and definitions of beauty (hence my getting more attention in Europe).

In general, research has shown that humans are drawn to certain looks, such as symmetry. Theories have been formed around evolutionary benefits of certain attraction trends: long hair and curves on a woman are often visual indications of health and fertility. Any indications of youth and strength in men are visual indications that a man will be capable of protecting the family for an extended period of time.

I will even admit that in college, I caught myself only smiling at males I found attractive. I’ve always prided myself on smiling at people. I think it helps us connect on a human level. But I once in the cafeteria caught myself making eye contact with a male and not smiling. And I thought, how strange. Why didn’t I smile at him? So I started paying more attention to it and noticed that I immediately smiled at males I was attracted to and not others. (All women got smiles – solidarity, I guess). I was absolutely ashamed and made an extra effort thereafter to make sure every single human who made eye contact with me got a smile because I believe that everyone deserves to connect on a human level, whether or not I find you attractive.

Why does everyone make such a big deal about it?

If people are more likely to take you seriously, or pay you more, or even just smile at you when they think you’re pretty, that’s a pretty good reason to make a big deal of it. We get more attention, more opportunities, and more external validation when others find us pretty. No wonder we are motivated to not just feel pretty, but be seen by others as pretty.

Why can’t I stop thinking about it?

My understanding is that our brains chemically reward themselves when seeing something deemed beautiful. Our bodies are literally designed to be motivated by it, to want more.

On top of that, a good business model plays to its audience. So if your audience is chemically drawn to someone beautiful, use someone beautiful to increase the chance that they’ll spend money in your store. And from there, we get society involved so that internally and externally, beauty is made to matter.

This, in turn, causes it to affect the way we act, what we buy, and how we feel.

Yes, beauty makes a difference, but it’s up to us to decide how much of a difference it makes. If you’re tired of how beauty is portrayed, how it’s discussed, or how it affects your life and the lives around you, make the change yourself. Talk about beauty in a respectful way, frame it in a realistic context, and portray it to the rest of the world with empathy and understanding.

Remember that your idea of beauty is different from your neighbor’s and that that difference does not make one perspective more valuable, valid, or worthy than the other. Don’t let beauty and the splendor that it can provide take away from the things that are even more important: respect, empathy, dignity, and love – you know, all those things that make us human.

You are beautiful. Go show the world.