Hmmm.

It took me a minute to decide if I would respond to this post.

I'm going to go ahead and write my thoughts and dedicate this response to my late friend Becky Tyree. Becky wouldn't mind me using her full name.

We were college pals back in the mid- 1970s. She died a few years ago when she sustained a head injury in a bicycle accident.

Becky was an amazing person. When she sought me out for friendship (and not the other way around) she pretty much read me the riot act when I explained that she was so much more attractive than me, I wasn't sure she would want to be friends.

Her answer to me?

"How I look and how you look have nothing to do with anything. I like you. We think the same. You're funny and make me laugh. I think we should be friends but if you're going to be all shitty about it, then forget it."

I wasn't as sensitive then as I am not but she made me cry. What girl who doesn't think she is attractive enough wouldn't want a really stunning girl to feel this way about her?

Thanks to Becky I found my self-confidence and it has served me well over my life. Beauty is a mystery of proportion, lighting, genetics. We have no control over how someone feels about the way we look except to dazzle them with our personality and confidence. And basically, we have no control over how we look. Yes, makeup. Yes, working our angles.

Oh, bother.

So what if I'm not stopping traffic? I'm smarter than average, I have people around me who love me and I enjoy my life.

When I was younger I had some good days. Probably ten times in my life I've had someone tell me how beautiful I am. It may be surprising that almost all of those times were said by strangers, not those who love me and yet I'm absolutely certain of my value and worth as a person.

Becky helped me see that. And damn, was she a beauty! She even aged with beauty as her ally. She put on her make-up and did her hair and worked out to keep her body tight but being beautiful wasn't as import to her as her talent as a music teacher, her ability to be an incredible friend, being a mother.

I hadn't talked with her for several years when I heard she died but when I looked at pictures of her on her facebook page she had a new man in her life and the way she was looking at him told me how much she loved him. He loved and lost her in such a short amount of time. I'm guessing when he looks back at their time together it's not her facial beauty that won him over. I'm certain it was the vastness of her heart.

She was sassy, smart, bold, funny, quirky, loving and she didn't put up with any crap!

I look like my Dad. Oh well! My eyebrows don't exist anymore! I'm too fat! Oh well! If I'm offending anyone's eyes with my uggo mug, if they chose not to get to know me for something as superficial as my face, well then they miss out on me. Becky was my mentor. Gotta love me from the inside out or it's a no go. That was her rule.

Ain't that gorgeous?