A Jen Too Many

You know, I really thought I was ugly back then? What I wouldn't give now to look that again. OK - minus the acne.

Of course, this was my senior photo, the big one, the one that was going in the yearbook! So, I was wearing makeup, and had just come from the salon where I'd gotten a brand-new cut and perm. (And, considering it was the 80s, I'm surprised it looks that good now. What? No BTS?* What was I thinking, looking so sedate?)

Most of the time I went around with my hair looking, well, odd. I never, ever wore makeup.** I had no judgment at all in picking out my clothes and probably looked a mess most of the time.

Unfortunately, a lot of that is still true. I hate wearing makeup, even though I've hit an age where I really can't get away without it anymore. I always forget to put it on in the morning, and it annoys me that I have to keep refreshing it throughout the day. Who has time?

Clothes are still my bane. I desperately need a clothing makeover, with serious advice on how not to look like a bag of rags that's been dragged through a blackberry bush.

But here's the difference between me-then and me-now: putting on makeup and getting my hair done isn't going to make me-now look a fraction as good as that 17 year old girl did.

And I thought I was fat and ugly.

Now, as mother-me, I wonder - how can I keep my beautiful little girls from looking in the mirror and seeing ugly? Right now they see beauty as mostly being in your clothes. Beautiful dress-up clothes makes you beautiful. Oldest Girl Child will come in, dressed in some outrageous combination of tutus, pajama bottoms and winter scarves and say to me, "Mommy, am I beeeauuutiful?" She preens, twisting from side to side as she poses, a pleased smile on my face, knowing that I'll tell her, "Yes, you're very beautiful," because of course, she's beautiful! She has on beautiful clothes!

Youngest Girl Child will dash into the living room, "Mommy, look at my dance!" and then she'll start humming or singing and break into a long, dramatic "ballet" routine, full of posing and leaping. She asks, "Mommy, am I beautiful?" and hardly listens for the answer, so sure of the answer. Of course, she's beautiful. She's wearing a pretty tutu!

Someday, one of them is going to look in the mirror and be the first to say, "Mommy, am I beautiful?" and she'll be talking about her face, her figure, her hair, everything but her clothes. "Am I fat?" she'll ask me. "Do these pants make my rear look big?"

And that? Will be what you call a bad day.
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*Bangs To the Sky

**Too shy. Color on my face made me feel conspicuous like people might look at me. Like boys! Which I both fervently longed for, and was scared to death of having happen.