The Beauty In Ugly, And The Ugly In Beauty

If you wanna get free,

and if you wanna do the passionate thing,

and if you wanna get smart for the sake of your heart,

you should own your name and stand up tall, and get real

and see the beauty in ugly.

- Jason Mraz

From time to time I go blog jumping. I see who other people are following and I see if they're posting anything that might interest me. Many times I find some that do. But a couple days ago, my jumping around brought me to a place - many places really - that broke my heart.

Now, most of the blogs I've encountered, they're about music, photography, religion, love, etc. And I suppose I just assumed that that's what all people blogged about. But upon my stumbling, I found out that some people are writing in a much darker, and confused state.

I came across dozens of blogs written by anorexic girls - dozens, and I hardly skimmed the surface. There is a huge community of them. And my heart broke as I read their posts. Many of them starting off saying things like "I failed today/this week/this month", "I feel awful because I went over my 400 calorie limit today", "I'm trying a new fast, maybe I can last a week this time", "Stay starving girls!". Then they would post photos of terribly skinny girls calling it "Thinspiration". Their blogs would be called things like "Quest to Perfection", "Journey to Skinny", "Anything For Thin". Words cannot express how helpless I felt - and do feel - reading those words, seeing those photos, trying to understand the mindset that these girls are in. Trying to figure out what words, if any, I could possibly say to reach out to them and - ideally - change that mindset.

It's one thing to fail to see the beauty in "ugly" (although I wish more people took Jason Mraz's standpoint on that one). But it's a whole new scary world when you fail to see the ugly that comes with the consuming desire for "beauty". A desire that runs stronger than your own will to survive and be healthy.

My heart is so broken for these girls. I feel compelled to reach out, but I don't know what words I could say that could break through their clouded vision. A vision that only shows themselves in a tainted mirror. I pray for clarity for me, but mostly for each and every one of them, that they should see their beauty, and not look to conform to the world's standards of it, to believe it.

S.