I KNOW that it happens to more of us than we’d think.  It happens when children are nice and well behaved so they can fade into the shadows.  It happens when children are naughty and don’t want to be caught ~ but doesn’t usually last too long…  It happens to girls who want to like boys but don’t have the confidence to be themselves.  It happens to wives who no longer want to be who they are.

I look at women and see a glut of overweight, back flabbed ex beauty queens who dress in clothes that don’t suit them and/or sweatpants.  I see women walking with glum faced partners, picking up the dropped pieces from the procession of their families.  Women who just don’t care anymore on the outside but want to be invisible ~ to become part of the scenery and as drab as humanly possible.

I see women who have been shocked and surprised at a comment from their partner about divorce, completely unsuspecting that they have achieved what they subliminally aimed for.  They became those women that they never believed they would be.

I see my daughter, a beautiful 22 year old woman who takes her time to look excellent every minute of every day.  She takes pride in her appearance and eyes follow her when she sashays down the street. She has a sense of pride that I am only just reconnecting with because ~  I used to be her.  I never saw myself gain much weight and lose little.  He controlled the wallet and would not allow me the right to wear something special and beautiful, or even thrift store chic. I just started wearing his tee shirts and losing more of myself in the process as he’d complain that my breasts were too big and would stretch his shirts.

I didn’t notice that my professional haircuts disappeared to save money.  I stopped doing my nails. I hope that my proud daughter never partners a man who ceases to admire the care that she takes to present her own strong sense of self.  I hope she never stops taking care of herself. I hope that she never wants to become invisible.

I see the peers of my daughter who went to high school with her and got pregnant and married or pregnant and not married and I see girls who look ten years older, tired and no longer taking care of themselves.  Shadows of who they used to be.  Invisible. Pushing strollers next to beer-gutted guys with a cold six-pack in each hand.

We need to find our value in our every day.  We need to get up, get dressed and exercise for us.  To present the side of us to the world of who we are on the INSIDE.  To bring the inside ~ outside.  But if we have to fight a battle with a partner who sees no beauty in that girl they once loved, we need to move on, they don’t deserve that delicate and delectable beauty…  We need to come out of the shadows and teach our sons and daughters that shining is who we are from the inside… to the outside…

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