Inside Out

So, I'm sitting at work, feeling a bit fat. Before you throw confectionery at me to shut me up, let me assure you that this is not a post looking to fish for self-assurance.

It is strange that some days I feel like the hottest thing since...I can't affiliate with the current Hollywood ideal so I'm just gonna say, Hepburn, and other days I feel ugly and misshapen and bleurgh. And yet, nothing much will have changed on the outside, except for maybe my frown not being upside down. It also feels as if the whole world has cottoned on that you feel ugly today, and they seem to agree. Do you give off some sort of ugly vibe when you feel that way?

Maybe you do. Because, similarly, when you feel happy or good you automatically seem ten times more pleasant-looking than you did when you felt ugly. And when people take notice it makes you even happier.

Why does it also make you feel miserable? (I'm not feeling particulary miserable today don't worry.) There's a difference between being ugly and feeling ugly. What makes us feel ugly? What it is about one's level of attractiveness that makes one comfortable or uncomfortable about oneself? No matter what vessel God decided to put you in, you're still the same person underneath it all aren't you?

Or are you? Everyone couldn't have been born grumpy and uncomfortable with the way they are. Everyone didn't have an instinct for when things were ugly or beautiful, what looked right, what looked wrong. You could never tell if you were cute kid until someone told you that you were. It never occurred to you that the fat kid shouldn't be fat until an adult made a comment on it. The only thing to guide you as to whether you were remotely pleasant to look at would be people's perception of you.

Is that what it is, people's perception of you? Well, of course it is. It's the only reason why you bother to dress nicely, bother to brush your hair in the morning. Equally, the same reason why you'll purposely wear a controversial outfit, dye your hair unnatural colours, make yourself look different from the crowd. Speaking of which, I never realised until now, that everyone in London tries so hard to look different, that they all end up looking exactly the same. Don't say it's not for other people. Other people's reactions, or even non-reactions, are exactly why we do those things. For some strange reason being happy with how we look validates and liberates us.

Your outward personality and appearance are the only things you have for showing the world what you're made of. Your exterior suggests how you want people to perceive you. How then, do you show the world that you feel beautiful, if you can't meet the standard of today's physical beauty? Most people try to match up with a thorough beauty regimen, others simply have their own way of showing how beautiful and powerful they are inside, but I am sure even the most comfortable of souls aren't completely appeased by their appearance all the time. What are they to do then?

Everyone feels that pang now and again. The world is just nicer to beautiful people.

Then you wish you were a little more thinner, a little more curvier, a little more built, a little more fair, a little more tanned, a little more flaw-free. All these 'flaws', and all these solutions available to fix them. Why do people need fixing? Poor soul who's got so many 'flaws' that he/she can't fix them all. How must they feel.


There's such a big ugly western pressure to strive for physical perfection. People telling you you've gained a pound, lost a pound, you know I've heard of a really good product to solve that problem of yours right away. It is thoroughly depressing. Personally, I never start up a conversation about the way someone looks or changed their looks. It never even occurs to me to tell someone I like what they're wearing that day. Maybe I'm just stingy with compliments. Or maybe I don't think it matters. But I do find that every now and again someone will have changed something, something so small like even plucking their eyebrows, and if someone notices they just seem the world happier that it's been said. Or if nobody says anything, they'll bring it up themselves to get a reaction of 'oh yes it really suits you', 'really makes a difference','it's lovely'. Let's not get started on the reverse. Exam time or some other stressful time comes along, and you stop preening yourself. So what, you look a little bit paler without some makeup, okay the stress has gotten you to accumulate some blemishes/ weight/ no thought as to dress sense - 'oh gosh did you see so-and-so, looks so awful, really letting herself go'. Argh.

Being in Tanzania, it's so much more easier to appreciate how beautiful people really are. There's no pressure to look perfect all of the time. You can look better than you usually do, but people just accept the default you, without any of the extra paraphernalia we choose to pile on top to make ourselves flawless. That lack of pressure just makes you so much more at ease with yourself. With no make-up, an oily face, and the stupidest combination of dusty clothes, one or two people still managed to find me attractive. I even got a couple of dowry offers, more than I get here, thank you very much. How's that for an ego-boost.

But again, someone needed to react to me for me to realise that I'm fine the way I am. People need to be told they look lovely. I have to admit, however, that my quavering about how I look has reached a minimum. There was a time where that wasn't the case. I am lucky, in that I have someone to tell me I am perfect. I never believed him at first but later on down the line, I realised that no matter where you stand on that ranking of 1 to 10 (be thoroughly depressed girls if you haven't heard how brutal the ranking system is already), all you really need to know is that one person thinks you are perfect. Absolutely and completely perfect, exactly as you are. Is that not validation enough? You may be picky about who this person is, you may not think certain opinions are valid. Which makes perfect sense of course, I mean a person who just said you looked nice today can't possibly say you are perfect, they haven't seen all your horrible bits, what do they know. So what. I don't care. Because today I am going to tell you that you are perfect.

You are perfect. You don't look like your idol of perfection, you don't even come close. But you know what, you look pretty amazing. Have you looked at yourself lately? You have a million little things that make you different from everyone else, there are parts of your anatomy that you have never dared to show the world, but I can guarantee there will be a hidden bit of you that someone is going to love. Gosh I'm falling in love with you already just thinking about it.

But seriously. I may not know who you are, I may not know all those hidden parts of you that you are too afraid to show, I may not know all those flaws you hate so much. It doesn't make it any less true. I think you are perfect. You. I really do.