What Is Ephemeral and Only Skin Deep????

Sadly, during the first 50 or 60 years of my life I never considered myself beautiful, good looking, attractive or anything but "funny-looking". I remember once during my 20's when was shopping in a little jewelry store I glanced to my right and observed a person who appeared to be standing there next to me. My first reaction was, "Oh, my..... now isn't that a funny looking lady....too bad she wasn't given more chin and less boobs.......bad posture too...." It took at least 10 or 20 seconds of this merciless critique before I gasped in horror at the realization that this pitiful specimen I was looking at was actually ME in one of the stores' many mirrors. I have never forgotten the dejected, sinking feeling that took hold of me when I realized that the fairly decent looking person I saw in the mirror when I brushed my teeth each morn was not the same person that other people observed from various other angles..... "Oh, well", I finally consoled myself....."at least I am somewhat clever, have a good heart and am definitely kind to animals....and after all....beauty doesn't last". So I patched up my tattered self worth as best I could and went about cultivating talents that didn't depend on knocking 'em dead in a bikini.

Fast-forward about 60 years to a time when I was downloading some old family photos ( I mean REALLY old.....I mean photos of my Mom and Grandma and Aunts and Uncles from the early 1900's and I came upon a later page in the album from the mid 1950's featuring a cutie whom I swear I didn't recognize for the same 10 or 20 seconds. "Holy crap", I exclaimed.......that was ME!" And I realized that, in all honesty, I was not really all that funny looking......in fact, I was.....well....... downright adorable !

Damn, damn, damn........had I but known........all those years of slinking down alleys and slithering into rooms silently without attracting any attention (or as little as possible being that my boobs always entered the room a few seconds before I even got there) I could have actually enjoyed 10 or 20 years of being.....well.....if not beautiful at least sort of cute.

.....That's why I encourage any readers of this blog who scan the first few entries without calling up some of the earlier ones to scroll down or upload the earlier entries that display a few early photos of me that might make you think of me as something other than a fat little old lady.......Imagine that Once Upon a Time all the fat little old ladies of this world may have once been what they used to call "heartthrobs".......all of this , by the way, offered with no arrogance...much humility....just calling attention to the utter foolishness of the young in never appreciating the glories of youth. All young people are gorgeous.....what a pity that they don't know it.....

Sigh. That time of my life was fun, but, to be honest, I am glad I have moved on to other things. For one thing.....the boobs were always a big problem. Those of you who pine for a D cup should only know how fervently I longed to fit into an A or B and be just one of the girls.

One of the major problems was Dirty Old Men. For instance once, coming home from the grocery store with my arms full of shopping bags I was trapped, helpless, in an elevator with the lascivious landlord of my building and had to beat him off with the only weapon I could summon..... a stalk of celery (which I happened to have in my one of the bags).......to keep him from ......let's say....measuring my boobs.......oh, the horror of it..

....as I told my Psychiatrist later......I wouldn't have minded so much if it had been Harold Ziebelman, the boy I had a crush on in the 6th grade (and who never gave me a glance, dammit), but all those ancient, wizened grabbers and feelers were loathesome.......really....what IS a poor well endowed girl to do???

Sigh.As I have said many times, life is fraught with dangers and challenges.......but, the bottom line to all of this ruminating is that it is hugely satisfying and great fun, even though in retrospect, to know now that I WAS once beautiful.

(A pox on you, Harold Ziebelman.....if you had only raised your gaze from my boobs to my face you might have noticed.....)