When I was in grade ten, I went to see ‘Jurassic Park’ with a group of friends one Friday night.  There was about fifteen of us and we sat in the two middle rows of the movie theater.  We were pretty typical teenagers; we spoke too loud…we threw popcorn everywhere…we flirted relentlessly with each other.

On this particular night, I was sitting next to a guy that I had adored.  For months!  He was tall and handsome…he played on the football team…and the word on the street was that he liked me too.  So, there I was…in a completely crowded movie theater and all the while, feeling like he and I were the only two in the room.  We talked…we laughed…we endured our fair share of awkward pauses.  And it was during one of those pauses that it happened.  That’s when his best friend – sitting behind us – leaned forward and said “Gen, you seriously have the gummiest smile I’ve ever seen”.

I was mortified.  MORTIFIED.

I gave him my best laugh…pretended I thought it was funny…then curled up in my chair in hopes that I would disappear.  Forever.  It’s been nearly twenty years since that night…and I’ve been self-conscious of my smile ever since.  And if I’m being totally truthful here, I believe part of me never really got over it…

A couple of months ago, I was standing in line at Starbucks listening to Shane Koyczan‘s latest poem…a brilliant piece of writing entitled To This Day.  Just as I was trying to decide between a scone or a cookie, these words echoed out of my earphones and hit me so hard, it knocked the breath right out of me…

they’ll never understand
that she’s raising two kids
whose definition of beauty
begins with the word mom

In that moment, the tears poured so heavily that I had to step out of line.  I had to lock myself in the bathroom long enough to remember what I was doing there in the first place.  I had to lock myself away until the impact subsided…until the shock waves stopped resonating through my entire body.

Just like that night so long ago, all it took was an instant…a moment…a single absorption of someone else’s words to change your entire perspective.  All I wanted to do was order my coffee.  Instead, I got reminded that I wasn’t just a person overwhelmed with self-conscious feelings about her smile…I was a Mother who – by default – was about to teach her daughter the same thing.

That one comment – from that one person – two decades ago, was the beginning of a road I wish I had never taken.  It was the beginning of countless years spent tallying my flaws…keeping a record of all that should be different.  Years spent reminding myself that my legs were too big…my boobs were too small…my eyes were too boring…my skin was too blotchy…my hair was too frizzy…and – of course – my smile was too gummy.  Not a day goes by when I’m not on high alert about all of these things…in a constant quest to change them.

I’ve never been one of those girls who ever feels all that beautiful.  I was raised in a house where I was told to love myself…but I was never taught how to love myself.  And being told these things doesn’t really matter at all when the person telling you  dislikes the very reflection she sees every day.  Now, as an adult, I see what a significant difference this makes because it was essentially the first step in an emotional battle that has included everything from what I saw in the mirror to the words I would whisper in my own ears at night.  And I can assure you…the fight hasn’t been pretty.

I’m not proud of this nor is it something that I share easily, but the more I spend my days with the most beautiful little girl in the world…the more I feel the need to put the arsenal away.  The more I’m beginning to believe that maybe it’s time to call a truce in this war that I’ve waged against myself.  It was realizing that if my daughter ever feels about herself the way that I’ve felt about myself…my heart would break.  In a thousand pieces.  And if I don’t stop telling her to love herself…and start teaching her to love herself, then it all becomes a very real possibility.

As I sat in the bathroom at Starbucks…a puddle of tears at my feet…I began to understand that it’s not really my legs that need changing; it’s my brain…it’s my mind…it’s my idea of what this all means [whatever this really is].  Because I am a Mother who is teaching two gorgeous little people about beauty in this world…and at this very moment, I don’t have any idea how to do it.  But I do know that – if nothing else – they are reason enough for me to learn.  They are reason enough for me to put a post-it note on my bathroom mirror reminding me how that same body that I judge so harshly also brought those miracles into this world…wholly and safely.  They are reason enough for me to pour my heart and soul into learning how to appreciate myself…once and for all.

And so, here I go…engaging in a peace treaty of a whole new kind.  Writing out rules of engagement with myself that I’ve never known before.  Ones in which my eyes can no longer deceive me and my words can no longer harm me.  Rules that will hopefully stop this battle in its tracks.

Because as of now…as of this day…I hereby raise the white flag.

I hereby surrender to beauty that is mine for the taking…

Big thank yous and eternal hugs to Ewan and Brianna Phelan from The Last Forty Percent for always seeing beauty in me.