Since high school, I've battled against the prevailing mindset that there is a beauty "out there" that I can not have. This mindset causes so many people to feel shut out, to feel bad about themselves, which is tragic for everyone on the planet. And so something about the Beauty Project struck a chord. I also admit that I felt a little defiant when I heard about it (I dare you to get a photo of me that could be seen as beautiful!). Clearly, though, my posing is also about this next stage of my life, looking for new role models and striving at the same time to be my own role model.
I resonate with what another participant said, that this is what 51 looks like. Yes! In this phase of menopause, truly everything is changing: my tastes, my hobbies, my mental processes, my outlook, my body...it's like being challenged to react to something new every moment, not unlike in adolescence.
Your project came at just the right time, giving me an opportunity to think about these changes, about my present self, and about what beauty is. I've decided that beauty is not an inherent trait, but rather an experience in relationship: not objective and static like a mere descriptive adjective, but an active experience, more like a verb! The beauty isn't in what we perceive, but rather in the act of being touched by some facet of what we perceive. So I might experience beauty in a face with symmetry when I feel a need for rest or harmony; while a person with unusual or asymmetrical features might strike me as beautiful when I feel playful. Until now, I thought of beauty as something that I wasn't. Not popular, too old, too fat, whatever. So it is refreshing to rethink this and come up with a different conclusion! I hope it's a bit like a bubble that dissolves, becoming less relevant.
