Kroger Aquatic Center opens
Badin vs. Fredericktown
Miamisburg graduation 2012
Home > Blogs > Women's Life > Archives > 2009 > January > 12 > Entry
Why can’t we appreciate our looks now?
A very well-preserved, older soap opera actress recently gave an interview about a scene she had to shoot years ago.
Robin Strasser, the fabulous Dorian Lord of ‘One Life to Live’ said she dreaded the shot because she was “chubby.” I remember the scene and she was most certainly not chubby.
She recently saw a still picture of the scene and said she realized she was not chubby, but in fact, hot.
In fact, when the show airs flashbacks of that scene and others, she now says she loves to look at her legs. She now realizes they were shapely.
Like so many of women, she didn’t appreciate who she was when she was that person. What is it about us that causes us to reject our positive attributes in the moment, but be able to see them clearly years later?
What is it about us that others can see now, but we refuse to see until later. Even if our best friend or husband insists we’re gorgeous? Even if our jeans size is a very low number?
I’m an offender. I’ve never thought I was pretty. But in my thirties I would look at a picture of myself in my twenties and notice that I was. Wow, I was thin too. Wearing a size 7 at the time was not enough to convince me.
Even just a few years ago, in my late 30s, I was in good shape. Doing Pilates several times a week and coloring my hair a gorgeous red, I realize now I could turn heads. Then, I was oblivious to it. But then there’s now. At age 41, I say that I weigh too much, my hair is too muddy a brown and I’m too, too pale. I imagine when I’m 55, I’ll look at a picture from 2009 and notice how my brown eyes and brown hair frame my face full of healthy skin. I’ll probably kill for the slim legs others tell me I possess right now.
You could say the solution to this is very obvious: We’re not seeing things. Our looks diminish as we age, so we’re looking at ourselves in the past and wishing to have that back.
But that doesn’t solve why we can’t see ourselves now.
What can I do? I mean if a glamorous soap actress can’t see her visual worth until years later, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Make your own hope. Just accept you. If it helps, tell yourself you were wrong in the past when you were downgrading yourself. And start seeing what’s good about you now.
It’ll be a trick even a soap opera actress can’t pull off.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: body image
Comments
By jemcx
January 12, 2009 7:23 PM | Link to this
So true, so true.
By BeHappy
January 12, 2009 9:19 PM | Link to this
We live in a world where too often value is placed improperly on diminshing attributes, i.e., outward appearances. Smarts are neglected until we realize that botox is truly rotting our brains by lack of using it. I wish we all could see and appreciate ourselves in the moment living for it as well. Life is too short to think about that “chub.” Envy will always exist either in ourselves or others and we have to learn to love our own imperfections.
By Lea
January 14, 2009 3:39 PM | Link to this
My 13-year-old stepdaughter keeps telling us she’s “fat” and “ugly”. Now, I wear a size 4 - 11 in juniors - and she wears a 5 (or 11… hmm). Since when is a size 5 FAT? (I wasn’t fat during my 14-16 days, so I don’t get it.) She also says her mom is pretty - and she thinks she looks a great deal like her mother (again, hmm). Now there are things I don’t like about myself, but I clean up really nice - I just wish I could not see the circles under my eyes. Somehow, no one else sees them!