Beauty and the Beauty

She's a pretty little girl.  She has long, wavy hair and big brown eyes; she has a big smile that lights up her face - there are a couple of teeth missing, but she just sees that as an exciting part of growing up.  She is happy and she knows she is beautiful.  She is not vain, she just looks in the mirror and sees what God sees; a Princess, a Queen, His gorgeous daughter who knows her worth.

But pretty soon this starts to change.  There is no particular day that she wakes up and decides she is no longer beautiful.  There is no event that sparks a shift in opinions.  There is only doubt.  When she smiles all she sees is scrunched up eyes and a fat face.  Her hair is too fluffy, it gets curlier and curlier and harder for her to manage.  Her eyebrows are bushy, her teeth aren't straight enough, and her body is not like those of the girls on T.V.  She thought she would be tall, but as her peers get taller, she remains a steady five foot three.

Pretty soon she is off to College, and those around her confirm her darkest fears; she is ugly, she is fat, she is not worth being given the time of day by any one of them.  They are good-looking, they are smart, they are organised.  They have supporters cheering them on, and pretty soon they start saying nastier and nastier things simply to boost their own popularity.  She holds on - to what, she doesn't know, but she must hold on.  Things will get better, won't they?  It won't last forever, will it?  She doesn't want to hurt like this any more.  She wants to look into the mirror and see someone worth something.  She contemplates how it would be if she took her own life.  How would she do it?  Would anyone care if she did?

If you haven't guessed, that little girl is - or was - me.  I don't know how I went from wearing pretty dresses and truly believing I was beautiful, to the girl who hated herself.  Originally, I thought if was the teasing in College that did it but while that did a lot to solidify the feelings I had about myself (and still struggle with, if I am truthful), after looking back, it started earlier than that.

I am not here to say that the world is a monsterous place because it advertises a standard of beauty that is almost impossible to maintain.  I am not here to say that the kids who bullied me in College are evil and deserve to die.  There were two girls who were hardest on me back then - one took her own life, and the other is one of my dearest friends (love you doll xoxo).  I am not here to say that my Father is awful for not telling me what I needed to hear when I was younger, because despite the fact that I have struggled with him recently, he truly is not awful.

I am not here to make you feel sorry for me.  Do I still find it difficult?  Oh yes, every day.  I look in the mirror and I struggle to see the loveliness of my face that others promise me is there, I struggle to see why others compliment my hair, or my eyes.  But I do see it.  It takes a lot of looking in the mirror some days, but eventually I find it there, lost beneath the despair I buried it under.

And sometimes, just sometimes, I see why those things I sometimes hate have been given to me.  My husband is attracted to my eyes, my smile and even (shock, horror) my body.  I have been able to use my story of the journey from self-loathing and pain to acceptance to help others, because there is no one else you would rather talk to than someone who has been through what you are trying to deal with.  

Lastly, I can see in every name, every stick, every stone and every object that was ever thrown at me that God took something ugly and used it to help me become even more beautiful.

""Everybody's got two faces, child - the outside face and the inside face.  The outside face is how the world sees you, but the inside face is what you really look like.  It's your true face, and if it was flipped to the outside you'd show the world what kind of person you are." 

-- Robert R. McCammon (Swan Song)

Peace out ladies and gentlemen.  Peace out.

Vampire v Vampire

Edward may be cute, and Eric may be the hottie of our wildest dreams, but people have been telling stories about these beings for centuries.

Why now, of all times, have we fallen in love with the idea of the vampire?  

And that’s just it – the romanticised idea of the vampire we have fallen in love with, not the real deal.  As Bella displayed using google in the first Twilight movie, these (arguably) mythical beings are described in many cultures as having various different attributes.  Their physical descriptions vary from hideous to beautiful, their skin colour pale to dark.

In pop-culture, they are described as generally attractive beings with pale skin, retractable fangs (Trueblood) or no visible fangs (Twilight), with super-human strength and the ability to run at a pace that would made an olympic gold-medalist sprinter jealous.

Is it because we all want to be the most beautiful?   

Is it because we want to be able to do the most things in the least amount of time? 
Is it because we want to be the best at everything?

I think it’s all these things, and more.   

You see, in a world where we pay thousands of dollars to be beautiful, feel that we can never get enough done in the time allotted to us each day and (because no one ever has the time to tell us we are good enough) want to be better than everyone else at everything, I can see why the idea of becoming something more than human is appealing to us.

I guess the question really is; if Stephenie Meyer had lived and written the Twilight series 50 years ago, would it have been received the way it has been?

Beliefs about Vampires

One popular belief is that Caine was the first vampire.  After killing his brother Abel, he was sent to the land of Nod (or night) and was told that everything he touched would die.

Apparently, there are several different types of vampires:

Vampyres

Those who are attracted to modern vampire lore and to emulate it by dressing in dark and/or old-fashioned clothing , wearing fake “fangs” and living in dark, Victorian or funeral parlour style homes.

Sanguinarians

Those who drink blood, due to some desire or compulsion. 

Psychic Vampires

Those who have the “power” to drain life-energy from others, rather than blood.

Mythical Vampires

An animated corpse that is demonic in nature (often considered a servant of Satan himself) and consumes the blood of the living, determined to spread evil.

Psychotic Vampires

A person (interestingly, only ever a male) who has a mental illness that causes him to believe he is, infact, a vampire, and begins to behave like one.

From garlic to crosses, sunlight to reflections, the list of possibilities is endless.  There was even book published in 1616 (though its author was later burned for heresy) suggesting that vampirism was nothing more than a virus.

What are your theories about how the demonic-type vampire once believed in developed into the hunky, fast, sweet and dreamy vampire we fantacise about today?  And why are we so into them now?