Beauty & Self-Esteem

Sometimes I get self-conscious and worry about little things. Surely every woman must be like me, a little vain and worrisome over things no one really cares about.
“If I wear this top, the moles on my arms will show.” “These pants bring out the lumps in my thighs.” “Horrors, my nail polish is chipped and some of my nails are shorter than others.”
I assume that everyone will notice things about me just because I do. If we looked at any woman anywhere, even Christie Brinkley, I would bet she would have moles, zits, a broken nail or chipped polish on occasion, and no one would notice or care. We’re all too busy worrying about our own flaws to worry about anyone else’s bodily dilemmas.
So if this is true, why do we worry? We should just assume that everyone is looking at their own problems and won’t notice our issues. That’s how it should be, right?
Then why do I know women who won’t let their own husbands see them without makeup? What’s the tragedy if your nail polish chips? It means you work hard.
I once worked with a lady who said that she notices right away how a woman’s nail polish looks. It was, to her, a terrible thing if a lady didn’t have a perfect manicure every single day. I was thinking, ‘Maybe if I didn’t have kids, a husband, cats, work, chores, gardening, I would have perfect nails.’
Weight is another thing people spend too much time concentrating on. I don’t just mean overweight people either. I went through a tough time once and at times I could only stand to eat a couple of bites at a sitting. My weight dropped to a mere 99 pounds. I regained my appetite and my weight and am average-size now.
I’ve always been a fairly small person, and I don’t do anything special to lose weight, but people say things like, “You make me sick, you’re so skinny.” Or, “I hate you.” One well-meaning man (not to mention any names, my stepdad knows who he is) asked me “Do you go to the bathroom after you eat and…. (He stuck his finger down his throat)…? Some people are built with a petite frame and others with a bigger one. I never say to an overweight person, “Gosh, you make me sick, you’re so fat.” We should practice a little sensitivity.
A person’s weight should not be of concern to the general public, it’s personal.
I think that if we have a flaw we don’t like, (barring what anyone else might think) we conceal it if we so choose, to please ourselves, and no one else. I complain about little things all the time and my husband tells me no one would even notice that, and not to worry about it. I tell him that it bothers me, I don’t care what anyone else thinks.
I shouldn’t even let things bother me, because it probably means I do have a small worry about what people think. That I might someday gain a little weight or get wrinkles, or gray hair will overtake my dark hair.
Well, I guess I just told on myself and every other human female on the planet. No matter what, we’re always going to worry about our flaws, even if we say we won’t. Or we shouldn’t. But, how about we make it our goal? Now, repeat after me, “I will not obsess about my flaws…”