Take a look at my boyfriend…. or not…

♪Take a look at my boyfriend… He’s the only one I got…. ♫
Not much of a boyfriend… ♪I never seem to get a lot…

Well if I was to be completely truthful I never get any as I don’t have a boyfriend… but that may very well be a case of TMI (Too Much Information – for those not up on their internet acronym lingo). So Valentine’s Day or SAD as some are calling it, is nearly over… (I am sorry I appear to be really liking acronyms today – Singles Awareness Day – or maybe it should be “I am Single and very Aware of it Day”???) anyways I survived!!!

OK so today I had a chat with a close friend of mine (do emails count as chatting?) we are both single ladies, and have been for awhile, and we have both found ourselves actually feeling content in our situation. I think this is the first step towards being whole and healthy.

In the beginning – right after my marriage break-up – I was good with being single, you know FREEDOM! at least that’s what I was trying to convince myself of, but a few months later I started finding myself missing companionship and wanting someone to pre-occupy my time so that I would not have time to focus on… well… ummm…. me! But I knew that was not healthy. I knew I had to learn to like me, and to be comfortable with me. And I am realizing that I am getting there. Don’t get me wrong, I want a relationship, of course I do. The human condition is one of desiring love and acceptance from other human beings.  But I do not need a relationship to validate me as a person.

And that is the best Valentine I have gotten in a long time…

Cupid’s Chokehold – Gym Class Heroes

 

I will not let me down…

I sit with tears in my eyes,

and a crooked smile,

as I realize that you are not a part of my life,

as it sinks in that this has been your choice,

and yet I know in my heart, IT. IS. OK.

I know that I am making my own decisions,

decisions that are right for me.

I am proud of where I am,

and my life is good,

that in spite of the tears I am happy.

I have found something I love to do,

that I have finally found a sense of achievement,

and I did not need you to find it.

That I am whole even if I am on my own.

and that unlike you, I will not let me down.

Beauty: in the Eye of the Bolder?

This morning as I read one of my blog subscriptions: Deep Thinkings, Friday Question: What is Authentic Art? I started thinking. As with art beauty is a deeply personal concept, perceived and defined differently by each individual. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, yes? Well this thought would not leave my head and kept growing.

Who are we to judge one another, and to weigh what is considered beautiful or ugly? Why are we so hard on one another? Why are we so hard on ourselves? Who sculpts our minds, creates our perceptions? What is beauty? What is beauty? Really… what is it?

In 2011, Dove^® released the findings of its largest global study to date on women’s relationship with beauty—The Real Truth About Beauty: Revisited. The study revealed that only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful, and that anxiety about looks begins at an early age. In a study of over 1,200 10-to-17-year-olds, a majority of girls, 72%, said they felt tremendous pressure to be beautiful. The study also found that only 11% of girls around the world feel comfortable using the word beautiful to describe their looks, showing that there is a universal increase in beauty pressure and a decrease in girls’ confidence as they grow older…

http://www.dove.us/Social-Mission/campaign-for-real-beauty.aspx

Now I do not actually use a lot of Dove products and am in no way promoting any specific brand… I also want to state however, that I appreciate the direction Dove has gone with its advertising and wish more companies would follow suit. Promotion of all ages, sizes, colourings – hair, skin, etc. is important because they are all beautiful in their own ways. I also have to state that I find Dove’s reported statistics sad and troubling; I have to wonder why girls, and women, do not think they are beautiful. Why do we feel so much pressure to obtain an immeasurable thing? Even resorting to surgeries in order to obtain what we feel we do not have? And who says we don’t have it? Who taught us to loathe ourselves and our physical attributes? Why do we allow ourselves to fall prey to such thinking?
I will be the first to admit that I myself have body issues (they are getting better but I have a long way to go). I have had children, I am getting older, my body has changed – not for the better. I have been a poor example of self-image to my daughters, sighing, poking, prodding, hating… But through it all I have always held that in my own way I am beautiful. It is not a vain thing, I am not God’s gift to man, I do not ‘strut’ around (that would actually be ugly) but I am unique, and genuine and I believe I have a simple beauty – which is just as much inside as outside (maybe more). But apparently that puts me into a rare category of only 4% of women. That is so very sad. (And I have to wonder if my body issues nullify what I believe?)
I also have to wonder if guys are as hard on themselves as women are as this is not something we hear a lot about, and I am not aware of many advertisers or studies that have focused on male body image/beauty perception (or should that be handsomeness perception?).

Seabird – Don’t You Know You’re Beautiful