The Ballad of the Girl Who Was Beautiful But Didn't Know It
Nothing in life will ever come that easy
Doesn't mean it has to be that hard
I know you will find out who you are.- From “Leaving Town,” by Dexter Freebish
In the early ‘00s, I took this picture with the lead singer of Dexter Freebish. His name isn’t actually Dexter (or Freebish); in fact, I don’t know what his actual name is. Maybe I never will. It’s fun to keep up the mystery. He, like most of those years, lives in the memories that Facebook decides are important to remember every year. After the reminder, he fades to gray. The girl next to him, the 21-year-old me, however, remains in vivid technicolor in my mind almost every day. This is a girl who hasn’t learned who she is. I think she is smart, talented, and gorgeous, but I know for sure that I didn’t realize this at the time. 42 year old me is screaming at 21 year old me, “How did you not realize how smokin’ hot you were?!”
But alas, I cannot, she’s got to figure it out on her own. It tickles me that I am one of those writer cliches - the girl who was beautiful but doesn’t know it.
What do we know about the woman who is beautiful, but doesn’t know it? Usually, that’s it, we just know her unfamiliarity of what she looks like and how those looks affect the beholder. We don’t know what she believes, who she loves, what she hates, her values, and her shortcomings. She doesn’t know anything about herself. She’s a blank canvas, a sounding board. This girl doesn’t get to have a hero’s journey. She’s a stop on someone else’s journey. A Way-Station. Since she’s not given her own agency, her own wants, and desires, we don’t know her, and she is not able to truly know herself.
It took twenty-one years for me to figure her out, and only because I had to see her as a way-station on my own journey. I appreciate who she was, but I find myself angry on her behalf. How much did she miss out on due to fear, anxiety, and hurt? The anxiety that developed after two different people asking her out on dates and then standing her up as a prank in college lead to the feeling that possible romantic partners only saw her as a joke, and not a person worth loving. The hurt that resulted from a person she liked telling her that she could only be cute, but never beautiful. The depression waiting in the wings became a monster aroused by the idea of taking her teen confusion and blowing it up to young adult panic and shame. There are good moments in-between the hard ones that helped propel her forward, of course. Those moments softened the blows that came from healing and learning.
I want to shield her from the ugliness, make it so she only knows joy, but I also want to reach back and hold her and tell her that while the memories may still sting years later, the pain will both fade and inspire her to create a life that she could have never dreamed possible. She’ll become an artist and writer inspired by finding the beauty in that ugliness and hurt. She will make a home for herself on stage and make people laugh and have the pleasure of turning those experiences into stories. In the year 2021, she will become a writer that will create worlds that people will get to watch on television. No, really, like on real TV! Just like Kim Wayans, Robin Thede, Issa Rae, Susan Harris, and Mindy Kaling!
I want to tell her to remember this photo, this moment of glowing happiness as something that she already has, not something that another person has to give her. She is already shining, she just has to learn to shine for herself. But of course, I can’t do those things. I can only let her follow the Jeremy Bearimy path, because every misstep, stumble, wins, and lesson learned will lead to where I am now. I can’t protect her, because she has to learn how to protect herself. Only by living the life ahead of her will she learn that she is not required to be a learning experience for others, she is a lesson that belongs solely to herself. There are still things that I’m learning, even now at 42, but I’m thankful in advance for all of the growth and understanding ahead of me.
