BEAUTY OR SUBSTANCE

As a child beauty was a thing that I saw around me. I saw it in nature, and in my parents’ eyes. But when puberty hit beauty was something that I wanted for myself. I saw how beautiful people were treated.

Looking back now, I’m grateful that I was not a beautiful person in the way that the world depicts it. I was cute/pretty but not an extraordinarily beautiful person. What happens to a beautiful person that only has their looks to get by in the world. Beautiful girls play themselves everyday trying to get a man with some money to take care of them. If they’re lucky they grab the golden ring and marry a wealthy man. If they were not so lucky, they became a thot that was passed around the locker room. Either way the woman that relied on her beauty alone to make it in this world never got the chance to find her real beauty.

Beauty fades and no matter how hard you try to hold on to it, it will leave you. Life will leave a mark on your face and your body. The loss of a parent, child or family member will dim your spirit. Depression and grief will take away the spark that was once in your eyes. Physical pain and sickness will leave your body in ruins. The loss of the beauty that you once had in your teens, twenties… will mentally affect you if that was all that you had.

A woman with her own sense of self, education, and a means to support herself is a beautiful thing. That woman will be able to open doors that are no longer held open for her. She has more to her than you can see with your eyes. She’s been knocked down, broken, and still she rises. That woman has been through the fire and come out not looking like what she’s been through. She is unafraid of growing old; because she knows that old age is not for the faint of heart and real beauty was always a part of her soul.