"You have such a pretty face!"

I've heard that for a good portion of my life, along with "You'd be such a pretty girl if you'd only...", and it's always hurt. I've always known that (mostly) the people saying it were well-intentioned, but it hurt. Because it made me feel like I could never be good enough. When I started having health problems and gained an ass-ton of weight...it didn't really make a difference. I legitimately could not tell the difference. Because I'd always known I wasn't good enough. Too tall, too clumsy, too fat, too well-endowed, too slow, too... All I was was flaws. My parents loved me, but unfortunately they reinforced these feelings all the time. In opposite ways of course. My mom always emphasized how wonderful a mind I had and was both astounded and baffled by what I could come up, she was proud of me in that respect. But she despaired of my appearance. My father thought I was well-proportioned and a pretty girl, but I could never be good enough for him academically. We won't get into my other issues with my parents, because that's not what I want to ponder right now.
I acknowledge that many people have had a hand in shaping my skewed self-image. It was all unintentional. Of that I'm confident. I have an odd perspective on life and always have had. It means that I don't react to things the way people expect (which has its pros and cons). I've been working on this shit for a few years, but the last year of freedom has been the most successful. Leaps and bounds, m'dears, leaps and bounds.
So what am I rambling on about tonight? Well, o voiceless internet, I'll tell you. I'm pondering the fact that they were right...to a certain degree. Strange realisation to come to when these observations have fucked over my self-esteem, but still...They were.
I must seem narcissistic at times, staring at my pictures or in a mirror. But the fact is that I'm trying to understand. I'm trying to understand what attracts and repels people about me, and so I study myself. I study my face, my body, my mannerisms. I dissect my behaviour, reactions, and interactions. Of everything in the world that I want to understand, right now I am my most important field of study. And sometimes understanding seems so close, almost within my grasp. Like tonight.
I was randomly looking through pictures of myself on facebook, when I stopped on one that has caught my interest lately. I don't know why, but I've been staring at it for weeks. It's like it cues something on the tip of my brain and I keep almost catching it. I don't know that I've caught it complete, but a little comprehension crept in. I have a pretty face.
I don't mean that I'm some Helen of Troy or what have you, nothing like that. But... I honestly do have a pretty face. I don't know what it is about this picture as opposed to all the others that have been taken of me, but for some reason...in this picture I can see the face that has had its admirers. I stared and stared at the picture and I saw it...and it baffled me. I still don't understand what makes my face pretty. I don't know why this picture says to me "Yes, you are pretty." but...it does.

It's like this epiphany. This sudden realisation that not all of those people who complimented my face were giving a back-handed compliment. But rather that they thought my face was extraordinary in some fashion, so (when it popped into their head to compliment me) it was the first thing to spring to mind. Sure, some of them were back-handed compliments. Trust me, I know my family and loved ones, not every "You have such a pretty face" was kindly meant. But that's a rant for another day. The fact remains that there were many comments that were kindly meant. That weren't "You're obese, but at least you have a pretty face!", but sincere. I can't express how much that means to me.
Then I started thinking of the "You'd be such a pretty girl, if you'd only..." and realised some of those were kindly meant as well. It's hard for people to understand what it was like to blossom at an early age (I was the first girl amongst my "friends" to wear a training bra). It wasn't just the discomfort with my body, little girls with envy are jealous little cunts. Bitches is too nice a word for how a lot of them behaved. Add to this the fact that my mom's a double-a cup and...well... Self-conscious is a mild descriptor. I just wanted to hide my body. So sometimes I seemed larger than I was, and sometimes I was just a frustrating person to deal with. Seriously frustrating. The dear people in my life who told me how pretty I'd be if I just "made a little effort" were trying so hard to help, while failing so VERY miserably.
Note to any parents out there: This phrase is guaranteed to cause problems.
I've struggled with this shit for so many years that this sudden epiphany is kind of hard to deal with. I've resented the people who said that shit for so many years, that it's kind of hard for me to realise that I have to forgive them. They never really knew how much I resented them, so it'd be a quiet forgiveness. But it's a forgiveness I need to grant for my own sake. Their intentions were good and they weren't totally wrong.
Growing up is hard. But lately it has seemed worth it. Figures I'd wait til I was almost 30 to catch on ;).