by Madeleine KandoI was born with a twin sister. She is 15 minutes younger than I and we always joke in our family that I did the pushing and she just went along for the ride. Like on a tobogan with me in front.
She is cute, my little sister. I call her that to get her goat because, of course, we are the same age. But she always did act like the ‘younger’ one. Always crying out ‘Mommy, Madeleine is hitting me!’ And since I was bigger and stronger I always held the short end of the stick in our fights.
I was also dubbed the ‘beautiful’ one. She was the ‘popular’one. As we matured, she morphed into a blond sex bomb. She was funny. Made everybody laugh. She was like the honey that attracted all the worker bees in our neighborhood and even though I was ‘beautiful’, it didn’t do me any good. She ended up with all the boys. I was too shy and awkward. Never much of a talker either.
I liked to pretend that I didn’t exist. I had fantasies of making myself invisible. That I could turn myself into a little pebble that could hide behind the wallpaper and from my safe hiding place, I could observe the world and not have to interact.
As I slowly became a young woman in body if not in soul, I suddenly realized that I WAS beautiful. The mirror told me so one day, as I was changing in front of it. I saw my breasts, my hips, my long legs… I thought: ‘wow, who IS this gorgeous aphrodite looking back at me?’
And that was the beginning of my downfall. The seeds of narcissism had been sown and I became obsessed with my looks. It didn’t help much that both my parents were photographers. And I often had to pose as a surrogate model because they couldn’t afford to hire a professional.
Yes, my beauty became like a fur coat. Everybody wanted to touch it, stroke it. Envelop themselves in it. And all the while I was hidden from view. My photographer parents, who mainly were concerned about my exterior, began to neglect what was inside. I couldn’t verbalize that what I really needed was for someone to see ME, not the fur coat. Until I too believed that THAT was the real me – I had become a beautiful, fake disguise of myself.
It is tempting to become what is in the eyes of the beholder. My morning ritual was to look in the mirror and if I liked what I saw, my day was going to be good. On bad days I was doomed to sulk in my room, unable to accept the barely visible shadows under my eyes. I was a good girl and wanted to measure up to people’s expectations of me.
But more and more the unanswered question came up: ‘Who are you really?’ I became sad and confused. Unable to voice my doubts, my looks began to isolate me. I might as well have been extremely ugly or suffer from a handicap: it would have had the same effect.
I was rarely able to relax and think of other things. I was stuck in the claws of beauty. Like a medieval knight in his armor: the slightest push and he gets knocked off his horse, shattering in a thousand pieces on the ground.
My kid sister, on the other hand, was all fun and giggles. Friends and admirers were aplenty. That made me feel even more like a freak. My instinct told me to break out of that mold. To leave everything behind. I yearned for freedom. Freedom from my photographer parents, from my family’s conception of me. And mostly from my own self-image.
And I did. I moved. But the voice in my ears kept saying ‘You are beautiful. You better act like it’. I had drunk from the forbidden well called ‘vanity’ and I had become addicted.
It took a good many years for me to sober up. I moved to the other side of the world. I got married to a man who not only liked my looks but also what was underneath.
But the most effective cure for my self-absorbed addiction were my children. That was my salvation. My young babies couldn’t care less how I looked. Children love you for who you are. And the question I had asked myself all these years: ‘who are you really, Madeleine?’ became almost irrelevant. I knew who I was the moment they came into this world. I was their MOTHER.
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10 comments:
How touching! I always wondered what happened to beautiful women when they "lost their looks". You see people like Ursula Andress or Anita Ekberg at eighty still trying to fit their former image and it looks sad; especially for those who try to retain youth via plastic surgery. Maybe you are right Madeleine, excessive beauty can be a handicap, it can get in the way of developping true character. Although one cannot generalise. Some very beautyful people (like yourself) are also very intelligent, kind, interesting, courageous etc. As long as the priority remains to beautify one’s personality over time one can be sure to attract plenty of love and attention.
Women of Substance Unite!
Madeleine's piece aligns with my philosophy: that we can be happy as we age if we strive to develop our inner beauty (or "power of spirit") as our outer beauty wanes. As the shell slowly loses its dazzle, the radiance shines ever more brightly from within.
I've observed that a woman over 50 who is still obsessed with her looks is usually pretty miserable. She's burdening herself with an empty, impossible task like catching water in a sieve. I just assume she's either insecure, or unwise, or egocentric, or all of the above.
Some of the most beautiful women I know are over 50. They're mostly concerned with the happiness of others; they're wise listeners and nurturers who try to understand and teach others. They know that the only thing we get to keep is what we give away.
These women dress simply, and exercise for health, not for sheer vanity. They typically own a few beautiful things, like a paisley shawl or special necklace -- each that carries an intriguing story. And these women are never boring, so they attract lots of people around them at parties, to hear of their adventures and misadventures.
We're beautiful and exciting when we consider the journey of life to be beautiful and exciting, with all its ugliness, charms, terror and joys. Too bad the modern world encourages the foolishness of obsessing with appearances instead of substance, but good thing at least that "50 is the new 30!"
Juliette and Jan. Thanks for your comments. The smart beauty is the one that puts her own beauty in it's proper place. Just one more card in the deck she is dealt in the game of life and not let it become her trump card.
Speaking of beauty, one of the advantages of being a conservative is that, for the most part, conservative women are more attractive than liberal women... probably an offshoot of the feminist movement and the concurrent minimization of differences between the sexes, while conservative women accept and relish the differences in the sexes, maximizing their appeal to men. Alan Alda may continue to admire feminists as they grow old, but the rest of us don’t. To wit, compare Hilary Clinton to Sarah Palin: Hilary might have been sexy in the 70’s but she let herself go…she’s got a fat derriere, big ankles, and wears pant suits to mask it…and let’s face it, her husband lost interest in her a long time ago (I bet he hasn’t had relations with her in years), whereas Sarah looks hot! She’s got a great body, great legs, and looks good in a skirt…and even appears in tight biking pants on the cover of a major news magazine. I also note that the media goes out of its way to portray Mrs Obama in a flattering light, avoiding shots that show she has bow legs, small calves, no waist, and a growing derriere…she looks like she outweighs Obama…not an attractive look. Ladies, don’t assume that your husbands will put up with letting your looks go. They might provide you with some verbal assurance that they will always love you, but just follow their eyes to see what they are looking at.
Your comments say more about you than anything else, anonymous. Sarah Palin as an example of female beauty? Conservative or otherwise, I find it painful to look at this barbie-doll look-alike without gagging. Hillary Clinton (who, by the way, could be Sarah Palin’s mother agewise) is, in my eyes, a very beautiful woman.
May I, in all modesty, suggest that republican politicians go out of their way to choose females that are not very bright and depend heavily on face-lifts to hide their age, which make them look like they are wearing a permanent beauty mask with the mud scraped off. Nancy Reagan is a good example of this: the facelifted, frightened bunny look-alike. Barbara Bush: old beyond her years because of alcohol abuse. (Compare this with Eleanor Roosevelt who was one of the most intelligent looking women in history.)
Maybe one of the main reasons I AM a democrat is just that I cannot identify with the way Republicans represent the female sex. Dumb beyond repair, face-lifted beyond recognition and totally totally uninspiring.
I agree Madeleine. Anonymous has a great problem. Politics left aside, I pity women who are brainwashed by a false media propagation of self worth (the Barbie Doll syndrome). It has become a pandemic. Such poor women believe that they are worthless over 35! Well, if that is what they wish for, good luck to them for a happy rest of their lives.
Madeleine and Juliette, I wish you both well with your decision to let your looks go. But as proven with the current case of Tiger Woods, even the “beauty “ of Elin Woods is no longer sufficient to keep a man, you’ve got to be “hot” as well (and let’s face it, women’s “intelligence” plays no part in Tiger’s or Bill Clinton’s or Barack Obama’s affairs).
But Elin will be rich and is young and pretty enough to attract another man; however, a word of caution to women of your age who are not concerned about your looks – I volunteer on a crisis line and deal with many recently divorced middle aged women who let themselves go raising a family. Now facing the empty nest and an empty marital bed, they are shattered. Being overweight and dowdy, they lack the confidence and physical attributes to attract another man…and so, just exist, sinking further and further into chronic depression.
I don't know how we got from 'being infatuated with your own looks' to 'letting yourself go'? As if there is nothing in between.. Lots of assumptions here on the part of anonymous.
Good point, Madeleine. Anonymous leaps to superficial judgment that isn't based on any prior statements or evidence. He has no idea what we look like, yet he assumes that if a woman isn't entirely vain and self-involved that she must "let herself go." He has utterly missed the whole point of this thread, which is that being too vain means you're letting concern for OTHERS go; that attitude demonstrates a lack of inner beauty.
Here are some questions for Anonymous to ponder: Did you ever consider that the importance of inner beauty applies to men too, not just women... and that the importance of staying fit applies to both genders too? Instead of thinking in "either/or" terms (vain or ugly), could you try for a moment to imagine that it may be best for men and women to strive for balance between the extremes? That they should take care of themselves through healthy living and at the same time, consider taking care of others too -- not just their looks?
P.S. To the Ladies: Isn't it funny that the three of us happen to all be exceptionally athletic and fit and considered beautiful by the world's standards, while Anonymous assumes that because we value inner beauty even more than outer beauty, that means we must be dumpy and ugly? What he says tells us more about him than us. Perhaps he's suffering from both maladies: letting himself go and letting others go too.
Jan Q
You state that “Anonymous leaps to superficial judgment that isn't based on any prior statements or evidence. He has no idea what we look like”. Uh? You were the one that called yourselves “Women of Substance Unite”, which we know is just a euphemism for dowdy fat women (see Revilo: Women of Substance http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/ReviloWomen/main.asp ).
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