Who am I when I'm not pretty?

Monday, March 26

I have an allergy. Don’t know what has caused it, but my face and neck are covered in a red rash that looks unslightly and itches from the inside out. I want to tell everyone I meet, I don’t usually look like this. I’m not usually so red and puffy. I can’t put make-up on. I have to approach the world as I am, without any artificial props.

I think about people with facial disfigurements. I knew a woman who was mauled by a bear. She wore a patch and had scars rippling across one side of her face. People would stare at her. Children would ask, “What happened to you?” She never explained what happened. Instead she would firmly but not unkindly explain that asking a stranger questions like that is not polite. Sometimes, the parent of the child would apologize. Sometimes, they’d get defensive. But P never backed down. She held her position and never told.

She wrote a book about her experience. A very heart-wrenching account of running down a mountain feeling as free as the wind to awaken a few days later with a face she hardly recognized and pain that never subsided. The woman inside is the same, she said. It’s the outside that’s changed.

But the woman inside was not the same. And that was the part she found so difficult to accept. The woman inside had changed. Many years later, I heard P had committed suicide and I wondered if that was the greatest change. She had given up all hope of ever being the woman she used to recognize, of ever once agian being as free as the wind.

The rash on my face will disappear, I hope! My daughter A. keeps asking me when I’m going to get it checked by a doctor. I’ve finally figured out I’d better get something to help ease the itching before I permanently disfigure my face with scratches. It’s been an interesting exercise to walk around without make-up, with apple red cheeks and the self-consciousness of not feeling as confident in the face I present the world as I normally do.

It’s like ageing. As I approached the mid-century mark, the lines on my face slid into permanence as I settled into the actuality of a body that does not conform with my ideal image! Over the top of 50, I am learning to walk the plateau of my middle years without feeding the angst that sometimes arises when I think about the 'loss of youth' evident in the changes to my face and body. I’ve gradually taken on the shapes and signs of ageing without putting up too much resistance to the inevitable passing of time. Sometimes I feel like my body is letting loose all the constraints that have held it in check throughout my life. Perhaps my body wants to party because at last it’s free to kick up its heels and live it up.

Most days, I agree with my bodies desire to let loose. Life is a wonderful party meant to be enjoyed like a glass of champagne tickling the nose. Except on those days when I realize, the world doesn’t look at me the same way anymore. I don’t get the same stares, the same compliments, the same looks when I walk into a room.

But then, I don’t look at the world the same way I used to either! Without the mantle of the victim cloaking my every move, I look at the world as a shimmering cloud of opportunity. Some good. Some not so good. I see the world as something I step into each morning with confidence and joy, as long as I stand secure in the centre of my ‘I’, and do not get pulled into the winds blowing around me.

The world has changed. And so have I because I recognize I determine where I stand in my world.

Perhaps that is the message of the rash on my face. Nothing is permanent, everything changes, including me. Today I have a rash on my face. Its presence is clearly seen by anyone who looks at me – or so I believe.

Who am I when my face is not what I want it to appear? My face does not determine who I am inside. It is not my face that determines how I greet the day. I can still smile. I can still embrace each moment, expecting the unexpected, excited about what life has in store for me today. My face does not determine my journey. I do. My challenge is to let go of the face I present to the world, so that I can be who I am, authentically, completely, joyfully. From the inside out.

Face or no face, I am me when I greet the day in love with beauty and the beast within and without.