All of the pain i've endured over the course of my life ❤️

Beautiful Me . . .

Beauty is a concept I struggle with. . . what it means, why it matters.
i struggle because huge chunks of my life have not been beautiful. They have been ugly, marked up by trauma, with pain, and anger. We think of beauty and often visualize glossy magazine pages and wafer thin models.
We see beauty as superficial . . . eye color, hair texture, and numbers on a scale. We see beauty as something to be measured and weighed. all these things hiding who we really are as individuals.

we all have scars , in side and out
however, because our scars manifest , we ought not be ashamed but , beautiful. It is beautiful to have lived, really lived, and to have the marks to prove it. It’s not a competition as in “My scar is better than your scar" but it’s a testament of our inner strength.

years ago i would have laughed at this assertion , Now? I see scars and I see stories. I see a being who has lived, who has depth, who is a survivor. Living is beautiful. Being a part of this world is beautiful and smile-worthy, despite the tears we may shed every once in awhile. Sometimes all it takes is for your life to change as in a shift of perspective, one solitary action or one solitary word, and everything is different, maybe even something like a smile or even a word like forgive.
all of the pain i've endured in the course of my past means everything to me because my past is me . take it or leave it

-S H Y A N N E-