Beautiful

Today’s beauty surprise: an angry rash on my shins on top of the weight gain that seems to have settled into my lower thighs. 

When I was a teenager, I was always too fat. In my 20s, I wasn’t blonde. In my 30s, I was back to feeling fat. At 40, I remember so little as my kids were running me ragged and I was absolutely exhausted, and, at 50, I simply felt old. Hyper self-critical at every stage, I can see now that I was gorgeous every day, jiggly arms, dark eye circles, tummy pouch, all of it, beautiful. 

So today, when I feel like I’ve physically aged a decade in 6 months, I’ll take a photograph, because in 10 years, I’ll look back at today, and I’ll realize how beautiful I really was. 

Remember what the future you already knows, ‘You are beautiful today!’