I'm a Thunderegg.

I’ve always been average-looking.   Not a face to turn heads, but not one to make small children cry either.   This means, of course, that for most of my adolescence I considered myself hideously ugly.  Middle school was particularly rough.  My mom made most of my clothes, I spent lunch hour in the library reading Anne McCaffery’s Dragon Song series and Agatha Christie mysteries, and I sang bass in the school choir, because my singing voice was deeper than most of the boys’.  I could give your more examples—or a completely different set—but either you know exactly what I mean, or you never will. 

Things started looking up in high school.  Overt cruelty became uncouth, for one thing, and I had the good fortune to attend a public school where getting into a four year college was the expectation, not an exception.  Suddenly, being a serious student was cool again.  I joined the swim team and made a good group of friends.   I applied for a short-term exchange program, and the summer I turned 16, off I flew to an island suburb of Bergen, Norway.

I had a fabulous time.  My host sister, Judith (Yoo-deet), and I became instant friends, which is fortunate, as we spent six solid weeks in each other’s company.  I saw fjords and glaciers and the midnight sun.  I shopped at Benetton and got a hot pink and black checked sweater AND a hot pink jumpsuit (it was 1985; what can I say?).  Judith and I walked down to the gas station and bought double decker ice cream cones, pistachio and chocolate, and listened to Springsteen singing “Jersey Girl” on the jukebox.  I learned how to say “good dog!” in Norwegian, and said it constantly to their sweet Burmese Mountain dog.  We took a ferry to Stavanger, and I bought a hand-knit sweater from a little old lady; a sweater I still break out every December.  I toured stave churches, and we watched Dallas on their VCR and Eurovision on their TV.  We went into town and saw Amadeus in the theaters, then hitchhiked back because we’d missed the bus.  (I was terrified, which amused her.)  The family made me a wonderful birthday cake, all whipped cream and fresh fruit, and I didn’t even miss my parents as we celebrated.   After I’d been there a month, Judith and I got weepy every time we remembered I’d be leaving soon. 

Somewhere in the midst of that delightful summer, I was dashing down the stairs of their home when I saw a familiar face.  I felt a jolt of happy recognition.  Sure, I was having the time of my life, but it was the first time I’d ever been so far away from the known.  I’d always taken a friend to summer camp with me; all my other travels had been with my family; I’d lived in one house my entire life.  So when I saw someone I recognized from home, I had a flash of sheer joy.

It was my own face in a mirror.

As soon as my brain identified that dear, familiar, face, I had an epiphany; one that has never left me.  To those who love me, my face is beautiful.  The affection I felt for that sweet little recognizable face is something like what my family and friends would feel if they ran into me unexpectedly.  Not “Wow, she sure has big earlobes,” or “That left eye is a bit squinty, isn’t it?” or “I guess she’s never heard of eyebrow shaping.”  Just, “Hey!  There’s Wendy!  Yay!” 

I pressed on through all those years, into what I currently recognize as my life.  I have days when I feel pretty, days when I feel hideous, and weeks when I don’t really think about my looks one way or another.  Only one person has ever really fallen for me, but since it’s the one person I fell hard for, it’s quite enough.  I smile for cameras like I was born to it.  I wear my bathing suit in public despite having put on 40 pounds in the past three years.  I wore a burgundy and silver gown to my wedding, because white makes me look more corpse-like than bridal, and I figured it was more about feeling beautiful than following “rules.”  

Then I adopted a little girl.  A very pretty little girl.  One who is fascinated with Barbie.  One who begs for earrings, and make-up, and heels, and who is perennially disappointed that I utilize those accessories sometimes, rarely, and never, respectively. One who refuses to wear a plain t-shirt, or even a simple striped one.  All shirts must have glitter, butterflies, or some other evidence of merchandized femininity. 

Last spring I went on her first grade class field trip to the zoo.  She was unabashedly thrilled that I would be there. Then the night before the trip, as I lay next to her at bedtime, she said, “I told the other kids not to laugh at you when they see you.”

“Um, okay?”

“Because of your skin,” she clarified, patting my cheeks, covered as they are in the characteristic red bumps of rosacea.  "And your teeth," meaning the gap between my front teeth.  “I told them that you are pretty on the INSIDE.”  

Clearly, this was meant to be an act of love on her part.  Clearly, I wasn’t taking it quite the way she’d imagined, so she plunged ahead.

“See, some people are pretty on the outside, like they’re a gem on the outside, but they’re a rock on the inside.  You are a rock on the outside, but you’re a gem on the inside.”

“Ah.  So, I’m a like a thunderegg.”

She still wasn’t sure if I was taking this the right way.  That made two of us.

“Because of your HEART, see?  You have a beautiful, beautiful, heart.  And that’s what’s important.  Kaliah at school is like a gem on the outside, because she’s pretty, but she’s like a  rock on the inside, because she’s mean, but with a little bit of a gem inside of the rock, because sometimes she’s nice.”

She trailed off.  This conversation was not going quite the way she had thought it would when she practiced it in her head.  I’ve been in the same situation, and I knew she really did mean well, so I rallied enough to thank her for looking out for me.

It bothered me all the same.  If there’s anyone who will think you’re beautiful, it’s your small children, right?  So if your adoring child thinks you’re ugly enough to warrant warning others, you must be pretty awful looking.

And yet.  I’ve seen her face light up when I show up to pick her up at the end of the day.  I’ve seen her make a beeline for me before she’s all the way awake in the morning.  She kisses, she hugs, she pats, she clings.  She turns to me when she’s scared or hurt or can’t get to sleep.  She quite literally can’t get enough of my cuddles and my attention.  She doesn’t think I’m pretty.  But my face is beautiful to her—I know this even if she doesn’t.  Someday she will look at pictures of me and sigh, marvel at how lovely I was, just as I do when I see pictures of my mom at 4, 13, 25, 68. 

My epiphany holds up.  I am beautiful to those who love me, even if they themselves don’t know it.  I am beautiful because I bring them joy.