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Beauty isn’t the same for everyone, but it’s not always different, either.

It’s no secret that fret over my own appearance. It’s a long hoed battled. Years of being told by men that I am “odd looking, or unusual or that I am not pretty…but somehow it works okay”. I’ve been told that I am unusual looking enough but not unattractive. But what I don’t have a long history of hearing is that I am beautiful. Fine. I am not. I get it. But I look at Hollywood and if any one of those girls were not sporting the make-up or the name of fame, they would be rather odd looking and not necessarily beautiful. But our minds are clouded with what we should be thinking.

We were tossed Kate Moss when she was like 15 and told that she was the image of beauty. We watched Hollywood shed weight to display the figure of beauty. Demi Moore buffed up for GI Jane and took it all off for Striptease. She held a title of beauty. Then she slimmed down and dropped a few years for Charlie’s Angel’s and made her “comeback”. Scarlett Johanssen isn’t a classic beauty. But she has lips and breasts that have gotten Woody Allen’s attention and clearly most at Maxim and the readers that follow. But my guess is that any of the men reading that magazine have probably dated at least one woman that given a high dollar maintenance budget would look like that as well.

I started reading the beauty magazines before I even had a learners permit. I’ve believed all the hype about cellulite and wrinkles. I was 14!!! I am 31, now let’s talk about cellulite and wrinkles. Well, because of a good diet and lots of exercise I don’t know about cellulite except when I slack off on running and my weight creeps up. Then I feel it before I see it. But the loss of 5 pounds brings the chuck right off. I think about it as fat cells that have been stuffed to overfill and they start to bulge in places they would normally not if they weren’t so darn full.

Wrinkles. My least favorite part of aging is the change I see on my face. Mostly in the fine lines but the also in the clarity of my skin. Youthful skin is lush and free from the dull complexion that comes with age. How do you accept aging gracefully when your entire life has been lived in a society that values youth. Bring on the sex appeal of the Candance Burgen’s and the Sharon Sarandan’s. Yet, even they have has a little Hollywood Kiss and Nevertell.

What’s a girl to do? Short of turning her face inside with cutting and carving and plumping and numbing?

How much time should a woman spend on her morning routine? What if I don’t have one? Do I get one?

All most women ever want is to be considered attractive, I am not an exception. Though, at times I would also like to know how to be attractive and a lot feminine at the same time.

In part this is my fault. I chose a career in a field less than glamourous. What did I know about glamour? It was unattainable. The girls in the magazines had it, I didn’t. So, one needed to decide, beauty or brains? and yes, a few lucky few would get both. Now I am asking for the whole enchilada. I want to be able to blend beauty and brains. However, I need to do some digging and find my beauty.

I do believe that inner beauty can be breath taking but I think if a person is so consumed by not having it – well, then it certainly doesn’t shine through.

I am kind of stuck in a rut. The old me would cut the hair, color it an entirely different color, lose 10 pounds and buy a new dress and have fun with the boost of confidence. But now I am married. So, begging for a boost of confidence is completely out – at least from strangers. Besides, I live in the middle of nowhere and so there aren’t other women to shop with or sort out these feelings or even better is that hanging out with other women I believe, is a self confidence booster. You are admiring another person’s beauty and it makes you try a little harder to feel confident in their presence. So, you apply one more item of make-up or get a darker tint to your hair than the other girls with the same color – you do things to set yourself apart. I am sure men are under the impression that women dress for them (men that is) but the truth is that women dress for other women. When you live out in the boondocks like me, you dress in whatever is mostly clean and will function in your office. If you teach at the local school you try to dress a little nicer than the other teachers.

But what is this girl to do?

I don’t want to live 1 week at a time in Kuwait while visiting my husband and worried as all get out that my pedicure is just the right shade of red, or that my highlights are fresh enough or that my skin is clear and blemish free for the week or that I brought the right things to wear. Sure, I want to effortless toss on some clothes and have him think I look amazing. But some times I get a microdermabrasion treatment before I see him and I go extra careful on my skin care in the hopes that I won’t have as many blemishes. I worry about the hair and often get a color before I see him. I pick out something cute to bring with me in the hopes that he’ll be distracted enough by the shoes that he won’t notice that my thighs aren’t as smooth as they were last time.

This is after all, to be my first trip to Kuwait as a married woman. We spend about 10 weeks or so apart. This is long enough for about 5 bikini waxes or in my case, 2. I haven’t had a microderm since before the wedding and even that was probably 2 or so weeks before. I haven’t had my hair done since the week before I last saw him and it’s getting long and unruley but not in the sexy kind of unruley that every woman wants, where you can just toss it around and it always looks amazing. So, how much time should one take to get ready? Why can’t I put out the effort here in the states that I attempt to put out there in Kuwait? Wouldn’t “practice makes perfect” completely make sense in a subject like this? But how much is too much?

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