Natural Beauty

Photo by Photo Chik
Kelowna, BC
Mission Hill Winery

My girls and I were discussing natural beauty tonight. J and M both said I was beautiful and didn't need to compare myself to the fashion beauties at my workplace.

It's hard to keep your equilibrium when you are constantly surrounded by the loud voice of "must keep up"! The funny thing is that voice is not coming from them, but from inside me.

Since I discovered arthritis in my foot which resulted in a bone spur that doesn't allow me to wear any kind of sexy fashionable shoe or boot, I have felt a loss of something. My walk is different. My confidence in how I enter a room or finish off an outfit with the right shoe has been compromised. I have felt different and am slowly working my way back into my own skin. I used to have my insecurities, but I knew who I was in a certain way. Now it's all different.

I have started working out in ways that feel balance the "handicap". I imagine it's like being blind and suddenly discovering a sense of smell you never knew you had. The funny part is that it's never a loss, when you feel deficient in something. It's just an opportunity to pull out something within yourself that you never knew you had and wouldn't have discovered had you carried on in the way you always did.

I imagine how my mom felt through 20 years of cancer in five different ways. She must have had to re-invent herself at each turn. So why can't I? The strength is there; my character is being called up, and as my mom did, I do not want to be found wanting. She wrote a memoir that I would love to edit and publish someday called "The Gift of Cancer". It was her perspective that changed her outlook, not her circumstance.

So as I head to bed, I will dream of 3" heels on black patent boots as I strut down my busy downtown street, but tomorrow when I put on my low, slip-on, square toe, chunky heel pump, I will be grateful for the opportunity to feel the difference in my perspective!

Thanks Mom!!
PC