I think it really depends, but I may be coming at this from a slightly different perspective. Three scenarios to illuminate what I mean:
1)I am in Starbucks, enjoying a free 20 minutes before picking up James from school, and I stand up to get a refill. I leave my cane at the table and walk as "normally" as I can to the counter. Someone says something to me - "can I get your cane?" - and I say no, this is a short distance, it hurts but thank you, I'm okay. That person then says, "You're so young, BUT at least you still have your beauty." Or sometimes it's, "A person as pretty as you shouldn't be hindered by a cane." In those cases, it feels a little backhanded. Do I think that person finds me beautiful or attractive? Yes. Do I think they'd find me more NORMAL without a device to help me walk, and therefore, might just stare at me instead of making a comment? Absolutely. But it varies on the person. Sometimes, the comment is sincere - "I think you are beautiful." But if I KNOW that person has seen me walk with the cane and then that person makes a comment about it, followed up with the beautiful comment, it's backhanded.
(The greatest time someone called me beautiful was when it was supposed to be an insult. I was leaving the hospital, wearing a normal tank top and jeans and had my hair then, and accidentally cut someone off while walking. The guy said, "Well, thanks, beautiful. I'm only letting you get away with that because of DAT ASS." I turned around - and he saw I was 36 weeks pregnant, and had come from the OB center for my three-times-a-week monitoring. He shut his mouth, but oh my GODS, it was funny.)
2)When you look like you are suffering, people are most apt to call you beautiful to give you "strength" (unless you are modeling. I've seen both sides of this coin, but one is vapid, and one is not). During my spinal tap - the one the tech messed up twice, and then I had to have performed under fluoroscope - in 2009, I was a mess. I had EEG goo in my hair. I hadn't showered in five days. I didn't even know what I looked like, and frankly, didn't care. But as the one tech prepped me for the tap, the other tech sat next to me as I cried, and he talked to me, and he said, "You are so young, and you are so beautiful. I can see you are strong. This will be nothing to a girl like you." And the words - though they could have been - weren't empty. He meant them. I could tell by how he looked into my eyes. Therefore, I can't forget that moment where a dirty 27-year-old girl actually WAS beautiful, despite the circumstances.
3)Cancer makes people feel ugly. I'm obviously not kidding, because, well, here I am. My type isn't the wasting-away look, either. I am bloated, puffy, and my stomach makes me look pregnant thanks to fluid and medication. My face is very round, and I have no hair. My skin is beyond pale, and the most common comment I get right now is, "How are your lips so blue and yet you're still alive?" It's not pretty. Cancer isn't a pretty disease. It's fucking ugly. I know how I look right now. I know people look at me differently, and aren't as likely to comment on photos because there's not much to say unless I slather on make-up (which takes a lot of energy these days - and I need that energy to actually just breathe oxygen into my lungs). However, it's the little moments - when I'm holding James and Toby says, "That is beautiful," or I'm curled up in an ICU bed and my dear friend (after he's seen me get sick on myself) says, "You know, the person with this illness is still gorgeous," or a nurse says, "Your strength makes you glow" - those are the moments I believe, because no one would say them unless they absolutely wanted to. The possibility of imminent death makes people examine beauty in a different light.
And though I don't feel beautiful at ALL right now, that's how I make it through. Because it's more than the cane and the hair loss and the blue lips and the trembling hands and the constant fluid retention. It's about what people see beyond that, and that they care to tell me.
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Date: 2014-01-11 03:53 am (UTC)1)I am in Starbucks, enjoying a free 20 minutes before picking up James from school, and I stand up to get a refill. I leave my cane at the table and walk as "normally" as I can to the counter. Someone says something to me - "can I get your cane?" - and I say no, this is a short distance, it hurts but thank you, I'm okay. That person then says, "You're so young, BUT at least you still have your beauty." Or sometimes it's, "A person as pretty as you shouldn't be hindered by a cane." In those cases, it feels a little backhanded. Do I think that person finds me beautiful or attractive? Yes. Do I think they'd find me more NORMAL without a device to help me walk, and therefore, might just stare at me instead of making a comment? Absolutely. But it varies on the person. Sometimes, the comment is sincere - "I think you are beautiful." But if I KNOW that person has seen me walk with the cane and then that person makes a comment about it, followed up with the beautiful comment, it's backhanded.
(The greatest time someone called me beautiful was when it was supposed to be an insult. I was leaving the hospital, wearing a normal tank top and jeans and had my hair then, and accidentally cut someone off while walking. The guy said, "Well, thanks, beautiful. I'm only letting you get away with that because of DAT ASS." I turned around - and he saw I was 36 weeks pregnant, and had come from the OB center for my three-times-a-week monitoring. He shut his mouth, but oh my GODS, it was funny.)
2)When you look like you are suffering, people are most apt to call you beautiful to give you "strength" (unless you are modeling. I've seen both sides of this coin, but one is vapid, and one is not). During my spinal tap - the one the tech messed up twice, and then I had to have performed under fluoroscope - in 2009, I was a mess. I had EEG goo in my hair. I hadn't showered in five days. I didn't even know what I looked like, and frankly, didn't care. But as the one tech prepped me for the tap, the other tech sat next to me as I cried, and he talked to me, and he said, "You are so young, and you are so beautiful. I can see you are strong. This will be nothing to a girl like you." And the words - though they could have been - weren't empty. He meant them. I could tell by how he looked into my eyes. Therefore, I can't forget that moment where a dirty 27-year-old girl actually WAS beautiful, despite the circumstances.
3)Cancer makes people feel ugly. I'm obviously not kidding, because, well, here I am. My type isn't the wasting-away look, either. I am bloated, puffy, and my stomach makes me look pregnant thanks to fluid and medication. My face is very round, and I have no hair. My skin is beyond pale, and the most common comment I get right now is, "How are your lips so blue and yet you're still alive?" It's not pretty. Cancer isn't a pretty disease. It's fucking ugly. I know how I look right now. I know people look at me differently, and aren't as likely to comment on photos because there's not much to say unless I slather on make-up (which takes a lot of energy these days - and I need that energy to actually just breathe oxygen into my lungs). However, it's the little moments - when I'm holding James and Toby says, "That is beautiful," or I'm curled up in an ICU bed and my dear friend (after he's seen me get sick on myself) says, "You know, the person with this illness is still gorgeous," or a nurse says, "Your strength makes you glow" - those are the moments I believe, because no one would say them unless they absolutely wanted to. The possibility of imminent death makes people examine beauty in a different light.
And though I don't feel beautiful at ALL right now, that's how I make it through. Because it's more than the cane and the hair loss and the blue lips and the trembling hands and the constant fluid retention. It's about what people see beyond that, and that they care to tell me.
♥.