Are We Beautiful?

I've been thinking a lot about beauty lately. I'm not really sure where this idea evolved from, but I keep thinking about it. Perhaps, it's the tiny blemish I just developed on my left temple? Or the audacious capacity my nose takes up on my face. I guess, I just started to think: am I beautiful?

Who would want me with this awful scar on my face, or these brown eyes, or these crazy emotions I feel about being beautiful and what that means. I am destined to be alone, I thought. Then, I thought to myself, naturally, that I should compare myself to others. So I did. But rather than seeing other's imperfections as reason to heighten my own self-esteem I found those imperfections to be beautiful.

A mother and daughter who cashed-out at my register with their groceries; two stoic women with pasty complexion, pointy noses and glasses to boot. They looked like twin sisters. They are beautiful. A man who had too much sun as a child (as well as an adult), maybe he was a construction worker, or concrete layer. Whatever it might have been, his skin was burnt and dry. He is beautiful.

I think what I realized is that too many times we stand in the mirror to ask ourselves if we are beautiful and if we live up to the astonishment which are those unreachable beauties, which people (some people) have been cursed with what society see's as "perfect" genes.

I guess, in short what beauty is, it is more about what beauty isn't, and it isn't some competition where we must compare ourselves to one another. It is our fulfillment of taking what we have, and making it work.