Ugly

Went to Johor last week and found this book, Beyond Ugly by Constance Briscoe. Read the first book entitled Ugly by the same author a few years back and it moved me. I felt compelled to pick the book though it's twice the price of any regular titles. The book is about a person who has to battle her own insecurities caused by her own family members particularly her mother. She's told that she's ugly since the day she could remember. Throughout her adulthood, she looked for ways to tackle her ugliness issue though she's never ugly to begin with. She went under the knife several times to 'correct' her flaws but the hardest thing to repair was the damage that's done to her inner self and strength. 

People are mean. When I was in school, I was told that my nostrils' shape was triangle and that I have a round nose. Everyday I would look in the mirror and tried to figure out how to make my nose sharper. We don't have any Caucasian genes in the family, how to get a nose that can open a bottle cap? My late mum told me I had too much bulu roma. It's kinda funny because she asked me a few times to shave the hair. I was lost for words but at the same time I wondered what would happen if I shaved it all clean. I was lucky to have a zitless teenager decade but when I entered my 20s, pimples decided to set up a village and staged a circus on my face. The thing which I couldn't comprehend is when people think I don't have my own mirror. If you don't like seeing pimples on my face, you think I do? Idiot. 

I'm lucky to have a very understanding man in my life. Since the day I met him, never once he highlights any of my flaws. Never at all. Not on the days that I have bloated tummy or on the days when my pimples wanted to play Burlesque. He would never say anything that would hurt me. When I asked him of my most outstanding feature, he said my cheekbones. I was surprised by the reply because all these while I thought it was my nose that's pretty obvious. Then I realized that my mom had those cheekbones too, which made her looked so pretty when she smiled. And my nose, he thinks that it is a cute one (don't puke please :P) We are entitled to feel good about ourselves and nobody is entitled to make us feel bad about our body. 

Lesson to learn -- If you don't have anything good to say, please don't say anything at all, you'll make the world a better place. Trust me.