Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance.
~Jean de La Fontaine
I don't want to be pretty...I don't want to be ugly...I want to be myself. This is a battle I've faced my whole life. I acknowledge that this is a plight of human nature and that to be "oneself" many people improve their appearance. That's great for them; but I won't.
People have entered my life mostly in simple ways; many of them have helped me to be a better person. Most have helped me to be smarter. Many have made me laugh. Several have introduced new things that I can no longer live without. And a select few did decide that it was their responsibility to make me more "myself" with make-up, hair-dos, and new clothes. I realize that they had good intentions but I feel that they didn't know the real me because if they did, there would have been no need for their "improvements." As hard as they tried, nearly nothing they did has stuck.
This isn't to say I haven't changed or improved; I think I've done plenty of both. But all of that has happened on my own terms, at least terms I'm comfortable with. And now I've arrived at my point - if you're not you on your own terms, then you are selling out. This idea is how I've always felt. Yes, be yourself. Yes, be beautiful, if that's who you are. Yes, be plain, if that's who you are. But always BE you.
So, as for me, I'm not myself if I do my hair every day. I'm not myself if I even wear mascara. I'm not myself if I spend more than twenty minutes in the bathroom to get ready for the day. But that's just me. And, all I want is to be myself.
