In Search of Beauty

The ideas had been brewing in my head for a while. I completed the script last night, rehearsed and timed it, edited it this afternoon and rehearsed it a few times. And I was good to go. I did worry about forgetting my lines though.

Here is the speech that helped me win the champion trophy tonight:

In search of beauty

Once upon a time, there was a sweet young thing. She was so sweet that she attracted many suitors.  Her suitors lined the streets from her house all the way to JB, and some even say Batam!

But as the years rolled by, the sweet young thing got married and had babies and suddenly she wasn't so sweet anymore.  She became a yellow face wife. And believe it or not - that sweet young thing was (dramatic pause) me of course.

During my first pregnancy, I ate like an elephant and ended up looking pretty much like one, having put on 20 kg. After disgorging the baby from my rotund belly, I still had 10 kg of excess weight. From an M size, I became XL!

Once when I visited my friend, one look at me and her mom's jaws dropped. Her eyes were as round as saucers as if she was witnessing something incredulous from Ripley's Believe it or not. She exclaimed “WA YOU HAVE BECOME SO FAT! SO FAT!” If she were a student in my English class doing show and tell, I would have given her an A+ for expressiveness, excellent vocal variety and body language.  But since she wasn't, I could only give her an F - failure for being tactful.  No woman wants to be told the cold hard truth about their girth!

Her callous words wounded my fragile ego so deeply that it ignited an obsession with weight loss.  Pre pregnancy I had a shapely pear shaped figure but post pregnancy I had become an out of shape pear! All my old clothes could no longer fit. My entire wardrobe had to be overhauled. In desperation, I tried dieting, exercising and slimming treatments, slimming pills, slimming gel, anything I could get my hands on but I could not get the desired result due to inconsistent effort.

Two years ago I signed up for a gym membership. Good idea right? Only thing was I could feel my stiff bones creaking in protest. Some moves were so hard I could hardly keep up. And there in front of me was a petite lady with white hair, in her 60s, prancing and moving with so much gusto that she completely put me to shame.  The sessions were always energetic and enjoyable but I eventually stopped going due to my part-time studies and exams.

Recently I was helping my 7-year-old boy to wipe himself dry after his shower. I was squatting next to him. You know how when you sit or squat, your thigh muscles will relax and spread out. Well, my son was staring intently at my thunder thighs and he suddenly asked me, “Mommy, why your leg so giant?” I almost frothed at the mouth and fainted.  But I quickly regained my composure, thanks to my Toastmasters Table Topics training and told him , “Well, God gave me strong legs so that I can carry you around!”

Seriously, a woman can have so many hang-ups about their physical appearance. My hang-ups are innumerable: small boobs, big butt, thunder thighs, belly fat, freckles, pigmentation, eye bags, dark circles, crow’s feet, and the list goes on.  I have searched for beauty in vain.

Last week I went for a makeover. I was so well made over that my son did not recognize me. As for me, I could not stop staring at my reflection in the mirror. I was unbelievably, unimaginably and irresistibly beautiful, like I was 14 years ago on my wedding day. But the magic of make-up is transient and illusory, when the make-up is removed, the magic is gone.

Then God spoke to me, (pause) not in person of course, but through the Bible. I was reading a story in 1 Samuel chapter 16 about God tasking the prophet Samuel to look for a new king for Israel. God directed Samuel to Bethlehem, to the household of Jesse, who has eight sons. When Samuel saw Eliab, Jesse’s eldest son, he was impressed by his stature and convinced that he must be God’s anointed king. However God said to Samuel, and I was sure He was saying it to me as well: “Do not look at his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  

(I Samuel 16:7 NKJV)

Wow! That made me sit bolt upright with the realization that I have wasted so much time, money and energy on my physical appearance when it’s my heart I should be concerned with.  And the bonus? How can a woman who’s pretty on the inside possibly be ugly on the outside?

In the wise words of Eleanor Roosevelt, the longest serving First Lady of the United States: “No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.” 

Now that’s the kind of beauty I want!