Dear Reader:

It dawned on me the other day, while watching a celebrity interview (on a talk show) that I hear the expression… ” Feeling comfortable in my own skin” quite frequently.

The celebrity will be saying something along the lines of ” I tried several different careers along the way until I realized one day I didn’t need to try to impress this director or producer anymore by imitating other acting styles… I just had to be me. It was only when I felt comfortable in my own skin” that my career and life fell into place. ” So true!

It is, also, only when we realize that everyone’s journey through life is unique and not to be compared against others… that we finally understand we are only competing against ourselves… pushing ourselves to be our best selves. We only need to seek our own approval… to think, be, and demonstrate to others… what makes us who we are.

One article I read called this the ” beautiful mess affect” … appropriately named. We must learn to love all our positive qualities and accept our weaknesses too by letting our vulnerability show. It is the vulnerability in the human race that attracts us to a deeper understanding of each other.

As I read this thought ( above) I decided to take a moment and reflect back on the time I remembered having a good laugh at myself. The day I grew up.

It was the summer before my senior year in high school. Senior pictures were being taken before school started officially …over a week period …to have them ready to be submitted to the yearbook.

For once in my life I was excited because secretly I had gone to Greenville to get my braces off right before my photo date. No one had seen me without my braces.

So some of my classmates’ parents planned a gathering at a popular ” Rec” Center to kick off our final year… we were bringing our ” proofs” from the pictures to share with friends and laugh and giggle over.

Even upon arrival… with us meeting and greeting at the end of the summer ..no one initially mentioned my teeth. I was crestfallen… there we were all hugging and laughing but no one had noticed my braces were off.

The parents had put our senior proofs on a bulletin board and then suddenly I heard a fellow classmate say ” Like your picture Becky… is something different?” – and then finally a close friend who had been talking to me stopped and looked at the picture again and then at me… ” You got your braces off!”

For the rest of the evening an occasional classmate might mention my braces being gone… but what I had considered a momentous, life-altering moment in my life was lost in the realization that my classmates had only known me with braces when we moved to Laurens and had accepted me (over three years) for who I was and not my braces.

That night I pulled out my three earlier yearbooks …where I was always lip smiling… and started smiling to myself. I had learned an important lesson… ” Braces do not make the person… nor any other physical apparatus- you have to go deeper than that. It is the total essence of ourselves that others feel that matters. I took a big step in growing up that night.

So until tomorrow… It is a nice feeling getting to a point in life when we can see past a mirror reflection and accept ourselves… just as we are.

Today is my favorite day -Winnie the Pooh