Hey there, Beautiful!

The phone rings and I smile as I see a familiar name on the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Hey there, Beautiful!”

And then there’s a long pause and I begin to laugh… because if he had Skype or a webcam or a crystal ball, he would know that he’d called me at exactly 43 minutes into a 60 minute workout. He’d know my face was 17 shades of red, breathing was my biggest priority, and that I was anything but beautiful. My always unruly curls were fighting like mad to get out of a messy ponytail, my make-up had long since vanished, and my favorite Oklahoma Sooner t-shirt was a different color than what the manufacturer intended. In that moment, I was a lot of things but beautiful? Not hardly.

And over my laughter, I hear him say quietly, “Thank you” which is the not-so-subtle reminder, for probably the millionth time in our friendship, that I’m supposed to be working on my ability to gracefully accept (and believe) a compliment. I’m supposed to be my own biggest fan. I’m supposed to love me “when, if, and no matter what!” But, beautiful? Really? How am I supposed to believe beautiful? I see me when I get up in the morning.  I see me in my post-workout state of mess. I see me when the cookies burn, when the bathtub drain is clogged, when the panic of a tiny emergency sets in. To me, beautiful is laughable…. Or is it?

Over time, and many a pep talk, I’ve learned that beautiful isn’t what I look like, it’s what I feel like. It’s bravery as I attempt to navigate independently; it’s courage as I take risks to try something new; it’s strength when I get back up when everyone expects me to be down for the count. It’s victory when I actually make it through all 60 minutes of that horrendous workout DVD! Beautiful is a lot of things but it’s what I make it. And that’s just it- beautiful is what I make it, beautiful is whatever I want it to be. It’s not my friend’s job to convince me to feel beautiful; it’s MY job to BE beautiful. And, truth be told, I’m terrible at it. But I can’t fire me from the job of being me so I’m working on it. And I’ll work on it again tomorrow. And probably the next day.  And one of these days, when a compliment looks me in the eye, I will bat my lashes at it, give it a wink, believe that I am my own supermodel, and mean it when I say, “Thank you.”

My hope for you today is that you never need remedial training in feeling beautiful, that you never leave home without a pocket full of self-confidence and a wallet full of wonderful (but not too much because vanity is never attractive!), that YOU are your loudest cheerleader, your most powerful inspiration, and your own superhero.