Life Lessons with Liz

"Beauty that steals the heart is often imperfect, suggests grace and kindness, and inspires tenderness more than it excites lust."  -Forever Odd, Dean Koontz


"You're being so adorable, it's so hard not to kiss you right now."


Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.




I'm trying to reconcile the first quote with my experience.  That quote came to mind while ruminating on a recent experience of mine.  It didn't quite seem to fit, because I don't have the kind of beauty that you'd think would excite lust.  Maybe I actually do and I'm just in denial.

It's thinking on things like this that makes me wish sometimes that I wasn't a girl.  Or that I wasn't pretty.  Which sucks, because the world tells you to look nice, and you want to look attractive or at least decent, and when you put in the effort and plan out a cute outfit and the stars and planets align and you actually do look nice for once, you doubt your appearance again.  But for other reasons.

Am I too pretty?

Will I cause someone else to sin?

I shouldn't have tried.

And then something happens like I allowed happen to me.  That's not misplaced guilt.  I did allow it to happen.  I really did want it, at least in the moment.  That doesn't make it right on either side.  But I'm not a victim.
And I'm not actually that stunning.  So when I think about that quote, and how he acted and talked that night, what am I missing?  Why does my beauty excite lust?  Why doesn't it inspire tenderness?  What did I do wrong?  What should I do differently?
And how do I trust another guy?  I want to be complimented, but how do I know it's genuine, and not just animal instincts trying to manipulate?  If I'm going to find a good one, do I need to look like trash all the time?  Totally doable, and a lot easier for me.  Not for my self esteem though.




But maybe the problem isn't me.


Maybe the problem is him.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  He didn't pay attention to the whole beauty of me.  He just let in what he wanted, just enough to excite lust.  He didn't look at the beauty that would have carried him beyond lust, to tenderness.
These are all a bunch of maybes, and that 'But' goes against one of my main philosophies in life, just assume the problem is you.  If the problem is you, you can fix it.
If it's not you...

You can't do squat.




Disclaimer for anyone who knows me personally and still reads this blog:  I am safe and well, don't worry about me :) what happened was a one time thing and there's not a chance it will happen again.  This is just one of my ways of processing things.