Tell Me My Beauty

“Tell me my beauty!” she says, eager, hopeful as we all turn to face her. She has been waiting on this for a year. I know because I have, too. We all have.

And so it begins, “You are classically beautiful, storybook beautiful, like Audrey Hepburn or Snow White with your dark hair and fair skin.”

We rush to shower her with adoration. “And your freckles. I love your freckles!”

“And your eyes. We know you have a thing with your eyes, but they are gorgeous.”

“Seriously. The color. So gorgeous!”

“And you have the best smile. Like you smile with your whole body. Completely infectious.”

It’s a tradition we’ve started along the way, the first time in New Orleans in a dark bar where liquor loosens tongues and the space between strangers pulls you closer to the ones you came with. I remember pouring those words into the blare of brass horns, into the smoke separating the two of us as our other friends chatted with locals.

“You’re the kind of beautiful that makes people want to have sex. You exude sensuality. You’re curvy and voluptuous and super feminine. Like even the way you move is graceful and fluid. It’s insane.”

“Oh my gosh, stop! No way. That is so amazing. Is that really how you see me?”

I nod.

“Hundred percent. Like if we ever need a third, I’d totally call you. You are basically everything I wish I was.”

“No way! That makes no sense. How do you see yourself?”

I pause, try to put words to how I feel without sounding too self-centered or too self-defeating because the truth is somewhere in the middle.

“I guess I’m beautiful in an obvious kind of way…like an I’m-trying-a-little-too-hard kind of way with the blonde hair and the short dress. Like a she-thinks-she’s-beautiful-but-she’s-not-that-beautiful kind of way.”

She shakes her head.

“That is ridiculous. That is not you at all. Let me tell you how I see you…”

And thus, the telling of our beauties was born. That first year was all about the physical, the surface. And it felt good, really good, to hear these things from another female, one that had never spoken lies to me before, so maybe these words shouted over the jazz and bourbon buzz were real.

This game of sorts continued and the next year progressed, encompassing not just the external, but the internal as we extracted the gold hidden beneath the muck inside each of us. We sat, silent as we could, and heard our beauties boasted aloud, filling each woman with something so desperately sought in this time of mothering and solitude. We found affirmation. Acknowledgement. Love. Flattery. These words, from mouths we’ve only ever trusted, could not have been more meaningful in these years where we have forgotten ourselves, forgotten our beauties.

We’d met years prior, before kids and marriage, before any of us had met our current partners. We were in college studying abroad outside London, a semester overseas that would bind us together like blood, long-distance blood that we actually liked. When stripped of all that’s familiar, you cling to whatever is within reach. Lost and lonely under damp, gray English skies, we latched on and have yet to let go.

Because there is something significant in the friends you see only on occasion. They have no vested interest in your key players; they have no stake in the game. They aren’t friends with your husbands, don’t know your kids or the soccer moms you see every Monday. They feel safe with the things you need to share, the things that pull so heavily on your mind but you are afraid to speak.

So you wait. For a year. Every year. And like clockwork, in the summer when everything is warm and soaked in transparent dew, you meet again, taking time to reacquaint and feel out each member’s separate yet connected place in the group.

Earthy Mother.

Clever Jester.

Trendy Artist.

Restless Dreamer.

Quickly, we fall into step with one another like our feet have never wandered from the cobblestone streets where we first met.

Each reunion feels a little different, with another sister wed, a new baby born, troubles that shift and jump from one of us to the next. The problems of our youth, twenty-somethings fretting over cryptic texts, jealousies, temporary lust called love, these things have faded. In their place, we talk of loss and longing, fear and failure, the secrets that keep us paralyzed in the silence of night when our families are tucked in downy blankets and blissful ignorance.

In this sacred space, we make room for these secrets to find light, turning them from monsters to just moments – moments of anger or regret or shame or defeat – but just moments once brought into the open. It happens slowly at first, because it’s been a while, every one of us living what feels like a lifetime since we’ve last gathered, layers upon layers piling onto each woman in the length of a year. It’s hard to know where to begin.

But after hugs and hellos and how-are-you’s are over, something cracks. One of us leads with an update or some small confession eliciting a wave of comments and questions from the enthusiastic chorus. We dive into this sister’s story and, just like that, we are back on a twin bed in a basement in a London suburb. No time has passed.

There is a collective exhale, and we breathe our old selves back into our lungs. The topics have evolved, to be sure, but the individuals speaking them are the same as they always were – Mother, Jester, Artist, Dreamer – we are still those girls seeking womanhood, we are who we were before our current roles redefined us.

And after we’ve aired the dirty laundry, pinned it up to dry in the rays of sun and East Coast sea breeze or Midwestern wind, wherever we’ve selected to meet for this particular reunion, we look one another in the eye, one by one, and share our beauties. This simple act, these words so easy to say to one another but not always to ourselves, build us back up, remind us who we are, reassure us that we are still whole. We are not, in fact, as broken as we might feel.

“You are so intentional with your time and your words.” “You’re such an amazing caregiver.” “You always check in and make sure everyone is okay.”

“You are smart and driven and living out your purpose in a truly impactful way.” “You are funnier than anyone I’ve ever known.” “You are so wickedly clever that I get excited any time I actually make you laugh.”

“You are inherently kind and thoughtful on a level most people could only ever hope to be.” “You are always the most polite guest and the very best hostess.” “You are so talented and creative, such an artist.”

“You are complex and layered and always thinking about something bigger.” “I have had some of the most meaningful conversations of my life just sitting with you.” “You have such depth that I was drawn to you immediately.”

Each of us sits and listens as the group picks up all of our misplaced pieces, reassembles us. It is exactly what we need. It calls us together each year, despite frenzied schedules and demanding jobs, miles upon miles separating us. And even though this telling of beauties is relatively new, only surfacing in the last few years, this spirit of love and encouragement has lived between us from the beginning. We’ve always thanked the Mother for stroking our hair, the Jester for brightening every room. We’ve applauded the Artist for her effortless outfits and creative gifts, the Dreamer for pushing dialogue deeper than everyday pleasantries.

But this newest tradition has now become deliberate, overt – and it should be. Women need this kind of support now more than ever with the onslaught of messages shouting that we can never hope to be enough, we can never live up to what the next woman is doing. It’s all garbage. Lies. So, we must be deliberate with our words when we speak to one another, especially when we speak to those we trust the most.

The telling of our beauties did not originate from some mindful, intentional place. It sprang from a drunken conversation because, with guards down, it is easier to tell the truth…and to accept it. It would have felt too intimate that first time to stare my girlfriend in the eye and tell her how beautiful she is, how perfectly she was made.

And to be the one receiving these words without looking away or rushing to change the subject? Impossible. We’ve been told too many times that we don’t measure up, that we are lacking on the outside or on the inside, and we’ve started to believe it. They want us to believe all of the noise. They need us to believe it. How else could they sell their endless supply of miracle creams and injections and self-help books and retreats and pills and potions and 30-day-money-back-guarantees? They need you broken, so they can charge you to be fixed.

Stop listening to them and start talking to each other. What if we sat on the front porch or in a coffee shop or at the kitchen table and just told each other the truth? You are beautiful. You are strong. You are complex. You are witty and kind and creative and thoughtful and sexy and joyful and passionate. You are everything you are meant to be. You are whole.

What if we took time once a year to just build our people back up by speaking truth and beauty over one another? What if we were specific in our praise? Would we still need the $85 miracle cream? The lip injections? The bookshelf full of somebodies claiming to know all the secrets we are missing?

Maybe. Maybe not. I honestly don’t know. But I do know that the two days I spend with these women once a year make me feel whole again. And the ten minutes it takes them to tell me my beauty does more for me than anything the infomercial lady with the shiny teeth is selling.

We need to purge those I’m-dying-to-say-but-equally-terrified-to-say thoughts that penetrate our day to day:

“I’m a terrible mother.”

“I’m terribly lonely.”

“I don’t know who I married anymore.”

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Forcing these toxins out of our bodies and into the air shaves the weight of womanhood faster than the powdered drinks and $2,000 bicycles they shove in our faces. When we breathe out these shared fears and insecurities toward women who love us, who will sit with us for the simple privilege of listening to our stories, we are instantly lighter.

We might not all be lucky enough to have stumbled upon a group of females that we so openly trust. This kind of connection takes time and a little magic to maintain, but most of us have at least one woman in our life – a mother, a sister, an auntie, a best friend – who knows the version of us that we like the best. They have met the version of us that we strive to be but almost always feel we are falling short of, especially when the noise creeps in.

It’s time to shut down the noise. Call her up. Invite her over. Remind her who she really is. Listen to who you’ve always been. Celebrate her beauty. Celebrate your own.

– Ashley, Woman of a Certain Grace