Dear Beautiful Women

My niece Sharon is only a couple of years younger than me, but you'd never know it by looking at the two of us side by side. I look every bit of my 55 years and then some, but Sharon looks like she's in her early 40s at the most. When we were young, Sharon competed in a bunch of beauty pageants and won some big awards and trophies, and had she chosen to pursue that path professionally, I have no doubt whatsoever she would have become a supermodel extraordinaire. My sweet niece always looks like she stepped right off the cover of Vogue magazine, always has perfect hair and perfect nails and perfect makeup, is tall and thin ... the truth is my niece Sharon is just a naturally beautiful gal. And then there's me ... I look like I stepped right off the cover of "Gals Who Know Nothing About Fashion," would superglue a ball cap to my head if I could get away with it so I didn't have to deal with my hair, have no nails because I bite them constantly, only wear makeup because I don't want to frighten anyone, am short and resemble a fire plug way more than a willow tree. Beautiful has never been a word that describes me ... cute maybe, feisty definitely, adorable every once in a great, great while, but definitely not beautiful.

I've known a lot of beautiful women over the years ... naturally beautiful women ... women who don't have to try to be beautiful, they just are. They come in all shapes and sizes ... those beautiful women ... there is no cookie-cutter standard or preordained definition as to what constitutes natural beauty, and perhaps the old adage of "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" applies even more strongly in regard to what is or is not perceived to be natural beauty. That's always been puzzling to me, you know, that what is seen as perfect beauty by one person can be seen as complete hideousness by another ... just further proof, I suppose, that there are no rules, no standards, no defining regulations as to the determination of natural beauty other than the eye, or perhaps more accurately, the heart, of the beholder.

The crazy thing is that most of you naturally beautiful women just don't get it ... you don't have a clue how beautiful you truly are. The rest of us know ... trust me on that one, friends ... trust me on that one for sure ... those of us who know and love you know how truly beautiful you are. We know you have beautiful eyes and a beautiful nose and beautiful lips and beautiful hands and beautiful hair and beautiful ... uh ... well ... uh ... beautiful everythings. But even more, we know you have beautiful hearts ... we know you have beautiful spirits ... we know you have beautiful compassion, beautiful hope and beautiful love. The rest of us know how beautiful you are because we know the real you ... we know how beautiful you are because we know the real you and we love you. Maybe there is a universal standard for natural beauty after all ... maybe that standard is love.

Dear beautiful women ... someday I'd like to be beautiful ... someday I'd like to be as beautiful as you.