"I don't think I'm very pretty." - waiting for puberty

(contains references to emotional abuse)

“I don’t think I’m very pretty,” I said to my reflection. I was 8 years old, and my eyes were too slanted, my skin burnt, my limbs long and gangly. Maybe when I’m older. Maybe puberty will do magical things. One can hope.

“I don’t think I’m very pretty,” I said to my reflection. I was 13 years old, and I was going through puberty. Hair had sprouted in embarrassing places, I had pimples everywhere, and the braces over my teeth caught in the insides of my cheeks. Maybe later I will be prettier but it can’t be helped now.

“I don’t think she’s very pretty,” I heard someone say about me at 15. Never mind that, I was accomplished in sports and a good student. Surely that made up for the lack of pretty. Or maybe it didn’t, when I got home and cried. After puberty, maybe my brown skin will turn a fair porcelain white, maybe my lanky legs will turn shapely, maybe the current me will look like the before picture of a glamorous and well put together stranger. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“I don’t think you’re very pretty,” he said to me. Tears were spilling down my chin and onto my bare legs. The illusion was shattered. I was 18 and in love, but I’d never felt uglier. Puberty is finished by 21 I heard, and hope renewed.

“I don’t think you’re very pretty,” someone casually remarked to me. 20, and putting on weight, I was no longer skinny. I went for a knee check up for sports injuries and the doctor told me to lose weight. “But what about my martial arts background?” I asked. “No, you need to lose weight,” came the official medical reply. I lost the weight. I lost the will.

“I don’t think I’m very pretty,” I said to my reflection. I was 22 years old, and my eyes were too slanted, my skin a garish yellow, my limbs of oscillating sizes. My beauty, or lack thereof, didn’t matter in the face of my compassion, laughter, and a newly discovered joie de vivre. I don’t think I’m very pretty, and I couldn’t care less.