Lost and Found

One part of me thinks I am beautiful but another part needs approval. Unfortunately, it comes from strangers commenting on my Facebook and Instagram pictures. I see myself through them and when my mom once told me that I have beautiful brown eyes I could not buy it. None of my followers in my social media accounts has ever told me that. I guess she lied to me to make me feel good. The bare thought of my mother brought my mind back to reality. My Dad must be in the kitchen and I need to help him prepare dinner. After my mom passed away, he has been working so hard to keep the house alive. I kept my phone aside which I was using for the past 3 hours and went downstairs to check on my dad.

Dad was giving his best to make pasta like mom’s. “Aren't you preparing for your big day tomorrow?” Asked my Dad with his eyes still on the frying pan. I nervously replied, “I am all prepared dad”. My heart skipped a beat thinking about tomorrow. I was taking part in a fashion show organized by Femina Miss teen. I had done my rehearsals well, but I was still not confident about my appearance. Somewhere in my mind, the dark circles still bothered me along with my dark skin. It’s easy to hide your flaws in Instagram posts with all the filters but in reality it’s not. Looking at my disturbed face my dad asked “Is everything okay? You seem lost.” I said “I am a little nervous.” He kissed me on my forehead and said “Just be yourself and everything will fall into place. After having dinner, I went back to my room and hopped on my phone. As I opened my Facebook account, some 50 notifications popped up. I felt a chill going down my spine when I clicked on them. Someone has posted a picture of mine in a very close up view from an anonymous account. I looked horrible in the picture because of the bad camera angle. After scrolling through the comments posted by some of my classmates, I felt dizzy. One girl wrote “How come she dreams of participating in Femina Miss teen with such an ugly face. Many have put laughing emoji on that comment. I could not hold myself after looking at those. I could hardly feel my hands on the phone. Tears rolled out of my eyes and they were hot enough for my skin to feel. I didn’t know what to do. I felt like locking myself in the room and never go out. As I was crying, I didn’t realize that dad happened to visit my room and discover me in that stage. He comforted me with a warm hug and asked me the reason for my tears. For a minute I was not able to speak anything. I felt like there was a huge lump in my throat. I handed him my phone with the picture still open in it. After scrolling for a couple of minutes he kept the phone aside. He took my face into his hands and wiped off my tears. He then asked me to take a few deep breaths. And I did whatever he told.

“Dad, Am I ugly?” I asked him with moist eyes. To my utter surprise, he was laughing. I didn’t know if I asked something funny. “Ana, what do you understand by the term ugly?” Asked my dad. I replied “someone who is not good looking. someone who does not have perfect features.” My dad smiled again. He then said “Ana there is no criteria in the world that can measure the physical beauty of living beings. It's all inside our minds. It depends on us how we look at things. I will give you a funny example. Do you think the aliens which they show in the movies are beautiful?” I imagined some of the characters from my favorite show ‘Star Wars’. I said “No dad they look horrible.” Then he said “So for them may be human beings look horrible too. There is no fixed thing to judge how beautiful you are.” I never thought of that. Maybe my dad is right. Maybe what mom told about my eyes was true. Dad took my hand into his and said “Ana some shallow likes and comments on Facebook cannot determine your worth. You have to realize that. Some of your friends are jealous because you got selected for the big event tomorrow. And they were doing this horrible thing to bring you down.” Somehow, I felt relieved after listening to Dad. I did realize that some of my friends were behaving weird after they got to know about my selection in the beauty contest. In fact, my best friend lily was avoiding me for the past few days. And may be I was also responsible in some way for their behavior towards me. I had become so obsessed over my appearance and about all the social media stuff that I ignored my close friends and did not even realize. I hugged dad and Promised him that I won’t cry over this petty stuff again. He told me that he will mail Facebook and get the content removed. After dad left the room, I lied on my bed thinking how stupid I was to rely on others for my worth and ignoring the ones who really cared about me. I wondered what mom would have said if she were here at this time. She would have done the same as dad but with a nice scolding for being such a silly girl. A smile crossed my lips with that thought and soon I fell asleep with a changed mind.