"You're Pretty"

I am on team of teachers, and I am the oldest. One of them, my partner, is taller than me and if you saw her you automatically think 'model' she is so pretty. Another, is equally as beautiful. The next to oldest woman on the team looks 20 years younger than me, but she is only 5 years younger than me.

I prefaced my post with the above, but the truth is, I have never thought I was pretty. As a child, I would look at my silhouettes that were drawn in elementary school and be critically embarrassed . I did not have the classic nose, mine was a pug nose with an upturn. My chin was not a nice looking chin. In order to close my mouth (which I always thought was too big for my face) my chin was pulled up to where there was not a full chin. I always had too puffy under brow bags that bothered me. About the only thing I liked on my face was the high cheek bones that managed to still be evident in spite of my puffy, fat face. And my face was an absolute oil slick with pimples, moles, and cysts that I tried to remove by hand, leaving brown/red swollen scabby imperfections that left scars in my later years.

I tried so hard to make up for my imperfections. I worked on my hair a lot as a teen--rolling it, teasing it, highlighting it, styling it. I wore make up to make my eyes seem wider, enhance my cheekbones, reduce the puffy fat above my lids, reduce my lip size, and cover any imperfections. Nevertheless, I thought I could make myself look pretty in spite of my physical flaws, but never beautiful, and when I would walk in front of people I didn't know and hear them laugh, I knew in my heart they were laughing at me. It made me want to avoid people.

I would look at the people who were beautiful--Jacqueline Smith-like who had classic, symmetric, perfect features and wish. It didn't help that I also stuck out because I didn't wear immodest clothing. It didn't help when I went to a BYU dance and the guys, who didn't know any of the freshman girls, would literally walk the inside circle and look up and down each girl like they were a piece of meat, always passing me by and asking girls on either side. My view of myself was solidified because I knew I wasn't pretty to them.

Whenever Mike would say I was beautiful, I thought to myself that he was trying to be a good husband and I gave him credit for that, believing he was just going through the motions and could never really believe that I was beautiful or that he thought I was beautiful.

As I have gotten older, the double chin appeared and my neck just kept going, my face got so fat and puffy that my one good feature, my cheekbones were buried and didn't really show as being there. My below-brow puffiness is now so baggy that it drops to cover my eyeliner. My eyes have shrunk and have huge dark bags below my eyes. My eyebrows are so thin they have to be make-upped on. The brown spots and pocks on my face seem to be never ending.

Now that you know how I feel about my looks you can understand how I was feeling this week. I was walking in front of my students on Monday or Tuesday and a girl looked up at me and said, "You're pretty." I looked at her quizzically, wondering what she wanted, but never said anything. The next day she said the same thing. In fact, all week she looked at me and said  the same thing. By Thursday, I had told myself that she was referring to what I was wearing because I had worn jewelry and tops that I liked. But today? Today I wore scruffy old jeans, and the wrinkled old school T-shirt, She turned to me again (yes, she is always the first one in line) and said, "You're pretty, Mrs. Wideman." I looked at her and didn't get it. I haven't yet said 'thank you' because I can't make myself believe she is being honest (in spite of her being a very nice girl). I would rather believe she is trying to make fun of me or 'brown nose' me. Anyway, it is causing me a bit of troublesome thinking. I don't know how to take a compliment I don't believe. Whether it is true or not, I ought to at least be kind enough to thank the girl, but I can't.