There is so little time and so many lessons in life to learn, and re-learn,
and learn yet again. Sometimes I feel as though I have made no progress
at all, coming face-to-face with myself after turning a corner miles down
the road from where I last once was. My moment of realization last week
was cause to make me tremble, my début upon the world after decades of
relative isolation and invisibility. I turned loose a picture of myself, just
one, but a huge step forward for me. The image is starting to become my
self image and I can see plumage of the creature that would be me.
I never thought myself an attractive child, but it didn’t matter because I
was raised in a family that accepted me; the ugly duckling nurtured by
glorious swans, I was convinced that I would grow into something and
eventually find my place in this world. What that something was, I didn’t
worry about, as long as it was honourable, respectable, within my moral
compass. Only that could not be compromised.
We lived out in the country, and went to a country grade school, and I was
so blessedly happy there. But a few years in, they closed the school and
bussed us into town. Naturally, we were different because we were from
the country and we were bullied and belittled, and it seemed that even the
teachers didn’t like us. It is then that you learn that not all scars are on the
outside, and that which hurts cannot always be healed, and I felt more than
ever that I did not belong in the world outside my nest.
High school was one torment after another, and it is with wonder that I can
look back on days without end that I carried my broken heart from the bus
back into the world to which I was birthed and given a place to reside and
hide. It was in that chaos and madness that I found a magical person who
would save me, not only from myself and an early demise, but from the
insanity that would threaten my creative nature and banish all hope that I
had purpose and was of value to the world. It all sounds so dramatic, but
to the mind of a confused and lonely teenager who has no idea of how the
world and the people in it work, to awaken every day feeling unattractive
and unwanted, isolation and fragmentation is more than just physical…
and so is beauty.
It is a gigantic leap to get from where I was to where I went, and it did not
happen overnight, and yet, suddenly I was there, like the turning of a corner.
One day, I was crying my heart out with gut wrenching sobbing, begging
on my knees for my God to release me from this cruel and vicious world.
And in the space of incalculable time, I had constructed a protective wall
around the beautiful person I finally understood was inside me, a barrier
that only God could breach. Understanding is in the knowledge that those
girls who called me names and said I was ugly were the ones who hid
behind made-up imitations of what they wanted the world to see and ran in
packs for security. They identified themselves with the girls they hung out
with and had no identity of their own, and I was excluded because I knew
who I was, and I wasn’t one of them. I didn’t fit in because I was special,
I had a specific purpose and a reason for being, and I would never be one
of the crowd. And the boys who made fun of me, picked on and abused me
because I was different and wasn’t like all the other girls, those boys would
never measure up to the standard worthy of the person that would be me.
Over the years and throughout many transformations, the ugly duckling has
grown secure in the knowledge that there will come a day when I will be
recognized by those like me. As time passes, I look back on the pictures
of me and I don’t know who that person was. The camera cannot capture
the beauty I have inside; only the shell I was given to protect me. In the
perspective of hindsight, I can see where I could have been lead astray to
make my dreams come true, if only I had been given the outward beauty
that so many of my classmates were born with. I tremble to think what I
would have compromised and the direction I could have taken had I had
beauty in my arsenal, and it is with pity that I look at some of those same
people who tormented me and realize the unhappiness with which they now
live, lives gone wrong, ethics and principles unworthy. Mine was the road
less traveled because of how I looked, and it has made all the difference.
A few days ago, while out with my sister, there was a girl at a high school
event, crossing the street, alone. My sister remarked that the girl was “a
most unfortunate child,” and when I looked at her, I saw my self of forty
years ago. A plain, non-descript, if not unattractive creature she was, and
yet, something in her carriage spoke beyond the ugly duckling shell she
had been given. I could tell that there was already so much more to that
duckling than the world could see, and I smiled that she appeared to have
already become the creation she was meant to be. I suppose we all grow
into our plumage at various stages in life, and I always figured that at the
rate I was going, I could eventually brag of being the best looking little,
old lady in the nursing home, but I may beat that schedule by a few years.
As far as beauty goes, skin is shallow, and attitude and personality are the
deep wells from which God’s beautiful people spring. Thoughtfulness and
compassion are the graces by which God leads. Ethics and integrity are
what choose our path. Loyalty and truth divine our ultimate goal. And the
scars earned from the battles in life add character and knowledge to those
creations who lack man’s pretty appearances. There was a time when I
wondered if God knew what lay in store for me due to the way I looked to
the rest of the world, if God had any idea how much I would be harassed
and belittled by my own kind, if God even considered how unfair life was
for me. Now, I am aware of how fortunate I was to have been chosen to
be different, to have been tested and strengthened, and to realize that I am
special to the world, and I am blessed to be the person that would be me.
