estacey
Sunday, May 07, 2006
  old issues

old pictures, originally uploaded by dawny.

dawny posted these old pics she found on flickr of us. (that pic is me & nikki, tho, not me & dawny.) i am absolutely shocked at how bad i look in them. i was ghastly white, overweight(er), had really bad skin.. my poor 18-year-old self was just a mess.

now, i realize i'm no model or anything now either, but i certainly have improved.

sadly, because this is a public and google-able forum, i can't be just flowing and honest about this. but i'm thinking about it and want to get it out, in some form.

basically, lately i've been getting compliments - a "you're gorgeous" here or a phone number request there. from a construction worker on young circle, i can laugh and say, "thank you, sir!" but in mixed company, it makes me a bit embarassed. old issues, i suppose.

seeing these pictures, i remember how hard growing up was on my self-esteem. due to the natural whitish hue of my pre-florida skin, i was tagged with the nicknames "whitey" and "ghost" in school. i remember my sisters and their friends making jokes about my weight and how i heartbreakingly never got the jokes until it was too late. i remember in 8th grade or so, the boy who i had had a crush on since the 2nd grade (and who would eventually become my first boyfriend), told me one day, "you know, whitey, you wouldn't be so ugly if it weren't for your teeth." [my teeth are now less imperfect, after having braces to move my canines down to the general area where teeth are supposed to be. this is only after breaking down to my mother about the above comment some time later.] i remember constantly having to answer questions about my pretty sister's romantic status and feeling quite invisible, or something worse, while doing so.

i guess it's just occured to me that it seems very unfair that something you can't help either gets you treated badly or gets you treated well; it makes you feel invisible or it makes you feel special. it's unfair that people with the best insides are looked over in favor of people with more pleasing outsides. and while i'm sure we all appreciate compliments and being told we're attractive (after hearing "ugly" one too many times as a kid, having it refuted, however confounding, is somehow satisfying), i can't help my knee-jerk reaction of worrying that someone in earshot is left feeling overlooked, when none of us deserve to be.

 
Comments:
well spoken stacey! bravo for you for speaking your mind. it is your BLOG after all and you should be able to speak your feelings. *APPLAUSE*
 
You have never been ugly!! And I have seen you in that "ghastly white, overweight(er) and really bad skin" phase.
 
Amen, Stacey. We all have our "ugly duckling" phases. I like to think that confidence about who we are eventually helps transform our outside. I went to college 200 miles from home. While I was there, I discovered ME. I don't think my physical appearance changed all that much, but when I came back after my freshman year the difference was quite noticable. I still feel like that duckling, though, and I'm kinder to those who are still in that phase because of it.
Good for you - and you ARE gorgeous! :)
 
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I'm Stacey. I'm a 31(!)-year-old Wisconsin girl living in sunny South Florida. The highlights in my life are my lovely boyfriend, my aloof cats, my adorable/adoring stepdogs, my two lumbering tortoises, select family members, being outside, being underwater, taking pictures, yadda yadda. Stay tuned for lots of babbling!

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Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida, United States

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Making a difference

A small boy lived by the ocean. He loved the creatures of the sea, especially the starfish, and he spent much of his time exploring the seashore.

One day the boy learned there would be a minus tide that would leave the starfish stranded on the sand.

When the tide went out, he went down to the beach, began picking up the stranded starfish, and tossing them back into the ocean.

An elderly man who lived next door came down to the beach to see what the boy was doing. Seeing the man's quizzical expression, the boy paused as he approached. "I'm saving the starfish!" the boy proudly declared.

When the neighbor saw all of the stranded starfish he shook his head and said: "I'm sorry to disappoint you, young man, but if you look down the beach, there are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see. And if you look up the beach the other way, it's the same. One little boy like you isn't going to make much of a difference."

The boy thought about this for a moment. Then he reached his small hand down to the sand, picked up another starfish, tossed it out into the ocean, and said: "Well, I sure made a difference for that one!"


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