Beauty.....and the things we learn later.

I remember being small and petite, soft spoken as a little girl, playing with Barbie dolls- I thought Barbie was the prettiest doll ever. Every girl I knew had barbies, it was easy to get caught up in the new accessories- Barbie had everything that any girl could dream of: A big house, a corvette, and of course- Ken/ the ideal man that most women hope for in this life, Barbie's perfect match.......
Well, with age I think most girls realize, like I did, that they didn't fit that mold- and they began to question themselves, their own beauty, and their worth. I began to think: well if that's what beauty is, then what hope is there really for the girls who don't look like that?
In my teen years I got to know more about different cultures, and their definitions of beauty, they weren't even close to Barbie's standards, and I loved that, but still- there was more to overcome during those years.
In my high school years there were boys that I had crushes on (of course I always kept my feelings to myself) most of the guys were Caucasion, but lets face it- it wasn't considered "cool" to date a Latina back then. To this day I can remember being in gym class one day and talking to my best friend about wanting to ask a certain boy to semi-formal, much to my mistake- there was a group of "popular girls" sitting near by who happened to overhear my conversation. One of the girl's came over and said "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but did you just say something about asking "so and so" out?" I replied: "No, I said that I was thinking of asking him to Semi-formal." The guy that I wanted to ask was popular and would most likely say no, but a part of me wanted to ask anyway, just to see what would happen. The popular girl giggled and went back to her group and told her friends what I had said, the group thought it was pretty comical apparently, I could hear them talk and laugh about it- I mean why would he have given me the time of day?: I'm Latina, I wasn't popular, and I wasn't pretty according to that group's standards. Frustrated, I decided to not ask him, and I didn't go to semi- formal either, I stayed home that night enjoying pizza and music instead- with my best friend......
The next several years of my life changed everything. Life opened up new doors to me and showed me exactly what I needed to see and realize to move forward with acceptance of myself.......
I had an amazing grandmother- Juanita (who passed away this April) who told me that "you're only given one life, you have to embrace it fully, that is the true definition of beauty." She taught me things I never knew about myself, she made me feel that there was beauty in me. She was there in the beginning years of my life as a baby, she helped care for me, she would tell me stories of the things that I did as a child. I was her first grandchild born, she kept stacks upon stacks of albums of pictures of me, everytime I went to visit her in Mexico- we would sit together and go through the albums. My grandmother would tell me how little I was as an infant, she would say: "You were like a little doll, beautiful." She was able to see me in a different way than I had, I had become very hard on myself due to others standards, due to other's definitions of me.
I thank my grandmother for waking me up........I owe her so much for that. Her death this year shook me to the core, bringing back memories- flooding my mind with all of her words of wisdom that she gave me throughout my life. She taught me to see myself through different eyes, her eyes, a woman who had known me since the first days of my arrival into this life. No one could know me better.

As an adult, and as a mother I've seen so much change since then. I have dated different cultures/ races- and I learned something beautiful from each of them. Beauty comes in so many different colors, and backgrounds, I fully embrace my culture as a Latina, and I will accept no one's definition of myself, their approval isn't needed. I've learned that it it far more better to have a beautiful heart than a beautiful face, no matter how much makeup you put on your face, you can't apply make-up to your soul. We all have something beautiful and worthwhile to offer this world, we all have individual things/traits that make us each amazing. Embrace those traits- because there's only one you in this world, and there will never be another. A hundred years from now- no one is going to know that you or I had ever even existed, it will be almost like we never had at all. Tell your children that they're beautiful everyday, because they need to know that. In a world so huge and ever-evolving- your babies need to know that they are special, that they have unique qualities that make them amazing, that they can be anything that they want. I wish I would have learned those things earlier in life.
Beauty is what makes you different, the way you express yourself, your talents, your flaws, your changes, the way you love others, the way you move forward from lessons learned. You may not live according to other's standards, you may not be what other's want you to be, but all you truly need to be- is what you wish to be, what makes you happy. Our time here in this life can end anytime, and when it comes to a closing- it's not going to matter if other's thought you were pretty enough, good enough, smart enough, successful enough, the only thing that's going to matter is how you feel about everything that you are.
Embrace it now. And love it.
And if you ever fall off track, if you ever forget your worth, know that there is someone out there who sees beauty in you.
Me.