Believing In The Beautiful

This week I shall be treading the boards once more with my Abbey Family in one of my favourite Disney Musicals. (OK that's a lie it is my favourite because it's got a girl who loves books in it and spoiler alert...her Prince gifts her a library)

Belle is one of those characters that you dream of playing, but alas that was never to be for me, because she is young (something I am not) and beautiful (something I have never thought I am). I do tend to do a lot of soul searching as my older self tries to make sense of life and the path that I have been on and one thing that has become abundantly clear to me is that I have never thought of myself as beautiful and I have never believed anyone who has ever told me so either. I can count on one hand just how many people have ever told me I am beautiful and it is sadly 3 people in my entire life (and 2 of those I am related to) and the last one was my husband on our wedding day 3 years ago and yet I just don't believe it. I don't know why. Is it because of the number, maybe if I have been told it more I would have believed it, who knows or is it one of those lasting doubts from the old self-conscious me that I just can't shake? You know that same voice that tells you, you are shit at everything and why do you even bother to try auditioning or doing anything when there are so many other talented and beautiful people out there to choose from, who in their right mind would choose you? Why would anyone choose you for anything in life?

And yet, someone did choose me, my husband did (though I often wonder what on earth possessed him) and am always waiting for the but...

I really wish I could get rid of that feeling, that one that is waiting for the but, the realisation that I will wake up one day and he will realise that actually he made a mistake, I am not beautiful, that I am just a boring 45 year old (how did that happen?!) now who can't find her arse from her elbow most days and is amazed she puts one foot in front of the other. That there are much better people out there than me for him. That I am still the insecure crappy mess I have always been, attempting to shine a light in that dark corner of my soul that hides all my insecurities and yet I often feel like my torch is faulty, flickering and struggling to stay alight.

Perhaps it is part of that need to be noticed, to be seen, is this the reason so many of us like romance and romantic movies or series such as Bridgerton because somewhere deep within us we all are that girl in that scene finally being seen by someone, being looked at like we are the most beautiful thing on earth.

I can hear that stubborn defiant streak screaming at me right now saying enough! You stopped listening to that inner crappy voice because you were done feeling like the shit on someone's shoe and were done hiding so what the hell is wrong with you? And the answer is I don't know, it's like sometimes the quiet voice is actually the one that is louder than the defiant one if that makes any sense?! It is the one that has the most power over me because it is the one that has been there the longest, that little niggly one that always thinks the bad stuff, the self doubt, the insecure whisper, the one where the bad memories hang out and occasionally club together to remind myself that my sanity is often only there by the thinnest of lines.

I am trying very hard to silence that voice and so I will carry on just trying to be me, trying to believe differently, giving everything I have on that stage and out in that big wide world there is just one big thing I need to remember, as the enchantress says in Beauty and the Beast that beauty lies within, but it is me I need to convince of that, maybe one day I will believe it of myself and maybe just maybe if anyone actually tells me I am beautiful in future I will believe it too.

Until next time x