Why I’m Choosing to Be the “Ugly” Midlife Woman
And I’ll be happy doing it.
Female beauty is a strange beast to me. It’s almost elusive. Like something external I could never quite grasp or a set of unobtainable rules I couldn’t live up to. As a GenX girl, I wanted to grow up to be beautiful, strong, intelligent, and fearless, but what did that mean?
I didn’t realize then, but much like Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, where beauty is enforced and measured by societal standards, our world had its own rules. To be someone like Lynda Carter in the beloved TV series Wonder Woman felt like the closest image of beauty, though impossible to attain.
I could climb trees, run fast, and handle a skipping rope like nobody’s business, but I was awkward, ungraceful, and never beautiful like she was. I figured I’d be the ugly girl with a strong wrist axle and killer bracelets.
It sounded like a viable option at the time. I certainly wasn’t beauty queen material. I didn’t have much confidence, and the only charisma I oozed came from my ability to blend into the background — I’d never be beautiful or fit the mold of what was deemed attractive. As a kid, I accepted that.
Beauty was elusive to me.
Moving into my teens, the era of the supermodel hit hard and fast. Beauty then meant…
