Humans are not walking invitations for critiques on their appearances. And since I identify as a woman, I’m here to say, stop telling women how they look; instead, tell them how they matter. Unless you are my spouse or my child, you have no right.

And you know what all of your unsolicited commenting has done? It’s made me feel icky!

If I have beauty, it is only skin-deep. If others see the beauty within me, it does not match my core feelings. I do not feel beauty, do you?

I have grown to understand that my attempts to look pretty and my meticulous attention to makeup, hair, & exercise have been a failed quest to feel beautiful inside. Feeling beautiful is not the same as looking beautiful. The outside is never pretty enough when you don’t feel pretty inside.

I identify as ugly. My core-self has been a constant whirlpool of grief, anxiety, stress, and dissatisfaction for most of my life. Ugly inside = anger, hate, unworthy, stressed, anxious, confused, bitter, alone. Only now that I have done some healing am I beginning to find my inner calm. This tranquil part of myself leads me to happiness and the inner beauty I desire. Pretty inside = happiness, love, loved, proud, safe, trusting, trusted, worthy, competent.

The best way to describe this phenomenon is that I’d be grotesque if my feelings were my mirror. Only when I pass by an actual mirror am I reminded that I am not a frothing beast with a hideous frown and creviced scowling features.

I’ve always had a hard time accepting compliments. After all, I feel the opposite truth, and it’s not complimentary. Honestly, I hate receiving compliments–they have always felt like a contradiction. A lie. They don’t match what’s inside, so they cannot be trusted. On infrequent occasions, I can accept a compliment satisfied that I have fooled someone. “Ah-ha, I’ve convinced you that I am doing well, thriving, and emotionally fit.” Do we all feel this way? Probably not.

What we look like takes up so much of our time, and this preoccupation has become something I wonder about a lot lately. Who is it for anyway? I feel the most content (pretty) inside when my body is covered, warm, and at ease with my surroundings. Well shit, I’m 52 years old–I’m not that 25 year old who at times saught attention to bridge the gap between what was on the outside to the inside anymore. Every human being deserves to feel happy, powerful, and exotic in their expressions, skin, and sexuality. But no human being has the right to judge, hate, and indignify others in response. You don’t get a response, unless it is love.

The isolation of Covid has set me on a path to be free of the “what I look like” worry. I realized I didn’t wear makeup because other people thought I was ugly without it; I wore makeup because I thought I was ugly without it and I worried what people would say. “Are you sick?” So, I stopped wearing it during the two-month office shutdown in April 2021. And after some time, I finally got used to myself without the war paint.

That’s what’s happening every time a woman (any human really) steps out of the safety of isolation–war. It’s a battle between a world of verbalized opinions and judgments and our inner voices. “You’d be a lot prettier if you smiled,” and, “Hey sweetie, you got a man?” or, (whistle) “Hey babe,” or, “You look tired,” and on and on and on. The comments about a woman or girl’s appearance from strangers, intimates, family, and acquaintances are endless, uncalled for, unsolicited, and simply out of line. Good or bad, nice or mean–stop.

Women are not walking invitations for critique.

You could argue that I am a hypocrite because I entered a beauty pageant. First of all, beauty pageants can help a woman find herself in so many ways, and for me, it was an attempt to gain validation that I was enough. It didn’t work. Not in the way I had hoped, anyway. Being Mrs. Maine bought me time under the influence of skin deep happiness and drove me to the edge of overwhelm so that I could begin my healing journey. Without the pressure of that crown, it would have taken a lot longer and been a much more difficult excavation to the center of my trauma.

Now that the whirlpool of hostility and beastliness has been identified, I can at least acknowledge that I have beautiful ways about me. I maybe ugly to the bone with some exterior beauty that is only skin deep but I am isolating some beauty within that others seem to see more easily than I can. Like, I love my people with honesty; I grieve with difficulty, and although I’ll never show you, I frighten easily. I am still searching for tranquility within that I know must be there. I love my daughter with fierceness and devotion, and I am the proudest of this love.

You can’t tell anyone how they identify. No matter male, female, nonbinary, or ugly, like me. As it was said by someone brilliant, “It’s like your body tells you one thing, but your brain tells you another,” and I agree with her 100%. Thank you, Cody Georgia. And for the rest of you, stop telling women (or anyone) how they look; tell them how they matter.