I Am Beautiful...?

There are days where I feel ugly. There are days where I do not like who I see in the mirror...days where I feel like I'm not good enough. I have moments where I look at myself in the mirror as I am standing there brushing my teeth and I am stunned. I see this person...with tired eyes and gray hairs. I see her and I wonder what the hell happened. There are days where I walk past another woman in the store and I feel like I am invisible. I stop and try to remember if I even remembered to brush my hair that morning as I look at her perfect curls bouncing with each step she takes. I see the smile on her face as she hums a pretty little tune...and I feel the drab written all over my own face.

There are days that go by when my husband walks in the door after work and his face lights up when he sees me standing there in the kitchen making dinner. He says things like, "Hi beautiful! How was your day?" and I find myself fighting the urge to turn around and look to see if Emma is standing behind me...because his question must be directed at her...because I don't feel beautiful.

There are days where I just randomly pull things from my closet to put on in the morning...because I am too tired to even care whether or not they are stylish or look nice. There are days where I see exactly just how much the stress of this life with diabetes has affected me because the inside exhaustion is shown all the way through to the outside.

I'm not a vain person. I never have been. I do not have the greatest self-esteem. I never have. I think I am ok...obviously not drop dead gorgeous...but I don't think i am horrifying either. I have my moments where I think I look pretty...but honestly not as often as I would like.

Now that Emma is almost 9 years old, I've noticed her paying more attention  to things like this. I want to change my attitude about myself and my appearance and my self-esteem...so I can lead by example for my daughter. I want to be able to exhude that feeling of beauty for her. I'm not simply talking about outer beauty, by the way. I want to exhude confidence in myself for her to see because I think that true beauty comes from within. I have talked with her about this quite a few times in the past...about how a person can be beautiful on the outside, but very mean on the inside..which causes their outside to not seem so pretty after all. I know she gets it. I know she believes that to be true. But I would like to be able to lead by example and show her that I feel good about myself on the inside which in turn makes me prettier on the outside.

I think it is probably easier said than done....I mean I am going on 36 years old this year...it's hard to change the way of you perceive yourself after so many years. I will try though. I will do my best because I want her to see it and I don't want her to ever feel that she is anything but beautiful.