Rambling about Beauty

Good morning, world! Or, by the time I upload this, good afternoon.

Looking in the mirror this morning, I noticed my eyebrows. They're not as attention-seeking as my great-grandfather's were, by a long shot, but I somehow managed to notice them anyway. I don't usually pay a lot of attention to my eyebrows, mostly because I don't need to, but also because I really don't care about my eyebrow thickness anymore. I used to, when I was younger.

I took a picture of my eyebrows this morning. The sun was in my eyes...

I think it's interesting how people are affected by beauty standards without realizing it. And everybody is affected, whether they like it or not. The poppie cheerleading teenager who wakes up an hour early for school to do her hair and make-up is an obvious example of a person affected by beauty standards, but tomboys and care-free hippies are just as affected... Especially those who try, intentionally, to fight those standards. Psychologically, your ideas of beauty and your awareness of other people's ideals can build you up or wear you down emotionally, and it doesn't just wear down the people who think they aren't beautiful, those who KNOW that they're beautiful can be bothered by it, too...

Okay, enough. I don't feel like going too much into the psychology of beauty right now. Not that I know enough about it to write an educated post about it, anyway. What I felt like saying about this is that at the end of the day, what matters less is whether you know you're beautiful or not, according to society's standards. What matters more is knowing what to care about. Don't care about what strangers think about your looks. Don't even worry too much about what your loved ones care about your looks. (Mostly because they care more about you than about what you look like... Or at least they should.) And don't worry about what your partner thinks, either - because the chances are pretty big that having chosen to be with you, they think you're beautiful - so you don't need to question that.

My hair is usually a lot messier
than this in the morning...

Care about what YOU think about yourself. If you think that you're beautiful, that's what counts. If you like yourself more with plucked eyebrows, then pluck them. If you like the way that you look in skinny jeans, then wear them. Stop caring about whether you're following a trend or not, and just listen to what makes you feel good.

To wrap up this post, I feel beautiful this morning. I like my long hair that gets in the way when I sleep, I like my eyebrows in their scraggly state (sometimes I pluck those hairs in the middle, but most of the time I just don't care about them), and I like the way that my skin gets all weird and lined in the night from lying on the creases on my pillow. Everything is a part of me and what makes me who I am, and I think it's all beautiful.

I sure did get up on the right side of the bed this morning... So yes: a Good Morning, indeed!