Vanity

I have decided that I am very vain. I have just spent a great deal of time going through photos to make a small album of my life for my friend Betty, whom I mentioned in the last post. I discovered numerous pictures of me both as a small child and as a wife, and mother.

I have been small and big and I'm not talking about age. I have always been a little over-weight with the exception of when I was a child. As my grandmother always said, I was "big-boned". But as I tried to select pictures from each decade I deliberately set aside the ones that particularly showed that.

We have many photo albums but luckily, I do not appear frequently in them. I hate to have my picture taken at the best of times and certainly not at the worst. The worst being when I am particularly "large". My family has been aware of this and very kind about it too. They do sneak a shot in once in awhile but I have hidden the latest ones. Why? Because I'm very vain.

"Vanity is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others." That is Wikipedia's definition and one with which I concur. I am concerned with my attractiveness to others. I like to know that when I go out I am dressed well and appropriately for each occasion, partly in order that my husband will be proud of me but mainly for my own satisfaction. I want to feel good about myself and knowing that I look good does that for me.

Lately it has been very hard to achieve a sense of "looking good" when through no fault of my own, but for medical reasons, I have ballooned in size. Nothing seems to fit right or feel right. I sometimes feel like I should wear a sign saying "this is fluid not fat". I know that I sound like I'm whining and I guess I am.

I don't like that this bothers me so much because I know it is who you are as a person that is the most important quality but as I said earlier, I want to look good too. For that reason I chose my graduation photo from University in 1989. I could have picked my wedding photo or the photos taken during my pregnancy with my daughter or son. They were good ones as well. But this photo is one of my favorites. It not only shows me in a thinner period but I can boast that after hard work, under difficult circumstances, I got my degree at 48. So you see, I am vain using either of the two clauses in the definition.