Breathe: Beautiful Girl, Beautiful Run

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder...then, I'm screwed & need to find away to get over myself. You would think that one approaching a milestone birthday would at this point in her life have made amends with her distorted image...but age doesn't always bring complete peace, & it most certainly doesn't equate to wisdom. For some of us, it's a long, slow battle that is always a work in progress...some days being better than others.

Thanks to social media, we are in touch with everyone...I do really depend on it to share the growth & development of my family with all of my family members several miles away. How else would I know that Uncle Kent got voted to councilman or that my neighbor I grew up with is now married with children. It's also convenient and necessary to build a business, keep clients engaged...and so on.

And then, there are the countless check-ins, posts, & pictures of how fabulous everyone is all doing, which I do love to look at and read..and I am right there with the best of them...the difference maybe is that to the outside my life looks amazing (it really is, but maybe not quite what you think).

In a photo, it would appear that life is footloose and fancy free...but maybe things are not always what they seem. Which is what brought me to the conclusion, that apparently I have more work than I realize to do on the inside.

Rewind to a social media project I had been tagged in to complete..(no, not the ice bucket)...but to post 5 photos where you felt beautiful. A friend had just posted hers, & I just loved the idea, because I do really believe there are all kinds of beautiful...inside & out...so that should be easy, dig up some pictures of yourself with loved ones, special events, moments in your life where you felt beautiful... All these ideas ran through my head of trying to emulate that image of strength and confidence...and yet, I still can't manage to find 5...5 photos I feel beautiful inside and out...(please, don't give me that crap that it's on the inside is all that matters...it's Facebook,  you never not posted a picture because you were hideous or posted it because, well, it was not so bad or even better, flattering in all aspects)...so I thought, there must be a mix of photos where I feel beautiful inside because I"m with someone I love & maybe I just happen to look beautiful on the outside...

As the days passed & I still couldn't pull this together... it began to bother me even more that this fun little Facebook project was eating at my brain, ...so much so, that out on a run in the mountains, it's what I thought of as I ascended each hill...Am I worse off than I thought? What happened to being a work in progress? How could I not find 5 pictures of myself? Why am I zeroed in on if my thighs look too big, my shoulders too broad, & my face just not pretty...God, have I not grown at all? What kind of example am I for my girls?

After that run, in usual fashion, I found my girls playing with my phone...and once they saw how sweaty & red I was, they, of course, started snapping away. Later, looking at these pictures of myself after running out to Gunstock in the middle of the day, heat, hills, and everything in between...I realized that maybe I will be okay after all. A beauty queen I am not...and some of those photos...geez, straight to the trash can...but I am okay when I run and right after a run....I feel as good on the inside as a picture perfect photo might entail. That is it:  I do feel beautiful when I run...probably one of the few times,  inside and out...so for now I will hold on to that.

You won't find too many bikini shots of me, and you definitely will have to look hard for me in a dress, heels & a full face of makeup...but you might find some photos of me running or otherwise being active, surrounded by family and friends that have similar lifestyles...probably not looking very picture perfect or even pretty for that matter...but feeling stronger & more beautiful than ever. And maybe that is where beauty lies...