Beautiful and Shallow

I am a lawyer who makes house calls.  House calls are usually for elderly clients who have trouble getting to my office.  They frequently require witnesses.  They are a big deal. 

I met with an elderly woman I had not seen for years.  The last time I saw her I weighed 100 pounds more than I do now. 

I am very fond of most elderly people and young children because generally they speak their mind and are honest.  I walked into the house and saw the woman was placed in a chair.  I could see she was uncomfortable.  She smiled and exclaimed I was so beautiful.  I thanked her.  I told her how good it was to see her.  I was sorry she was unwell.  I touched her arm and took her hand.  I talked to her about the documents we were signing.  She told me, over and over, so many times, I was so beautiful.  She could not get over how beautiful I was. 

The witnesses arrived.  It can take a long time for an older person to go through and sign documents and place their initials on the various pages and paragraphs.  As we stopped in places I explained what she was signing, she looked at me telling me she was so happy I was so beautiful.  I thanked her.  I wasn’t going to argue with her.  That would be so rude.  When I left I bent down to kiss her cheek.  It’s hard to be old and sick.  She touched me deeply. 

It is so strange to me to be told I am beautiful.  I’m not saying it’s true or untrue.  It’s neither, it’s an opinion.  I am saying I hear it a lot and I do not know that I will ever get used to it.  And I think about it a lot, ‘cause I am a thinker.  I think maybe the greatest gift God gave me by suddenly being able to achieve weight loss at 50 years old after a lifetime of morbid obesity is the ability to experience the difference from being perceived as fat and ugly to being perceived as beautiful.  My daughter the model said it’s good to be pretty because people like being around pretty people.  She’s right.  You gotta try a whole lot harder when you think of yourself as fat and ugly.

Two days later I am processing the documents the woman signed.  I call her daughter to talk to her about what is involved.  Her daughter tells me after I left all her mother talked about was beautiful I am, from the time I left until she went to bed.  And had her daughter noticed the beautiful clothes I was wearing?  Her daughter told her lawyers dress up.  Yes, we do, it makes people feel better about paying us.  Do you want to pay that much to a lawyer in shorts and a t-shirt?  The daughter expressed her appreciation for all I do for them and said her mother said I am the most beautiful woman she has ever seen.  Wow, how to live up to that, I so hate to be a disappointment.  It made me feel sorry for her daughter.

Why is it so hard to listen to the endless, “You are so pretties?”  It is because the difference in the manner in which I am treated depending on whether I am big or small is tremendous, but it seems to me more of me did not change with the weight loss than the part of me that did change. 

I think almost all women living in South Florida today have numerous things about themselves they do not like.  When I weighed closer to 300 pounds than 200 I couldn’t even comprehend articles about troublesome body parts because I didn’t like the whole, why pick on any one part?  Now that I am smaller I know what they mean.  Which parts don’t you like?  Guess what?  Many of the parts you don’t like can’t even be changed.  You can’t go from being 5’ tall to 5’8”.  Did anyone else ever read “Black Like Me?”  Did you see the movie “Good Hair”?  Why do we want to look different?  So we can be prettier.  Why do we want to be prettier?  Because people will treat us better and let me assure you it’s really, really true. 

And then guess what, you can even be smart enough to know this and still be guilty of it.  I’ll give you an example.  My girlfriend asks, “What was the guy you went out with like?”  I tell her, “He was absolutely beautiful.”  “You’re shallow, Mare.”  I know it, must work on that.