The Quest for Beauty November 8, 2007

Six years ago, I was what people considered stunning. My looks (not to mention my dancing) made me popular in the dance circle I associated with. Back then I was young, I was thin, I was fit, I was beautiful, I was stylish, I was hip. Admired by many, I stood in the circle’s limelight and I loved every minute of it.
 
Fast forward to three years later when I began my gradual descent into fugliness and nothingness. I no longer belonged to a circle in which potential admirers were to be had; hence the need to impress was gone and with it went the motivation to look good. Feeling worthless, I sunk into a spiraling depression and stopped taking care of myself. Why bother, I thought? No one cares what I look like.
 
I couldn’t go back to the dancing circle because I had been away from it much too long. All this time my peers had been toiling away on their dancing. If I returned, I knew they would be at a far higher level of dancing than I was. I couldn’t take the humiliation associated with being of a lower status, so I never dared show my face to them again.
 
The more unattractive I became, the more difficult it was to look at myself in the mirror. It hurt to think back to the glory and the beauty of my lost youth. There I was at age 27, already old, fat, ugly, pathetic, and undesirable. I was both disgusted and angry with myself for reaching such lows, but I was too depressed and hopeless to dig myself out of my self-inflicted misery.
 
Last mid-August I broke up with my boyfriend of nearly three years. Though I spent a month grieving over him, I recovered relatively quickly. Then three weeks ago, out of the blue, I made the decision to turn my life around and get my looks back. I thought that if I were pretty again, maybe people would notice me and think that I was pretty. Determined to change the public opinion of me (with the hope that it would raise my self-esteem), I embarked on a quest to lose weight, get fit, and look my absolute best.
 
Since then I’ve made leaps and bounds. Much to my excitement, I look noticeably thinner and younger. Still I am not happy. There’s so much more to be done. Physical perfection (or close to it) must be attained for people to take notice. I’m not looking for a man; that is not the purpose of all this. I just want people to look at me and honestly think I’m beautiful – not cute as a button, but truly beautiful. And I want them to tell me so so that I may then go home, look at myself in the mirror, and say, “yes, indeed I am beautiful.”
 
Only then will my efforts not be in vain. Only then will I fully be satisfied.