Beauty is a word that encompasses so many ideas, things, and opinions. Beauty is a concept that is debatable, can be controversial, and changes with time. So, what is beauty?

My perceptions of beauty have changed. Some years ago, beauty was something I felt I could never measure up to as I placed the bar too high. Society’s bar, that is!

I was not pretty enough, thin enough, and my character was certainly not what I thought was ‘beautiful’. I felt different, odd, and not quite right. Was that to do with how I felt about myself or the importance I placed upon the opinion of others? Who knows, maybe it was a bit of both?

Regardless of the reason, I put so much store into trying to measure up to what society thinks is beautiful that I, in my mind, could not attain it. Fast forward to today, all those perceptions I had of beauty and of myself have changed. Experiencing life does that, doesn’t it?

For me, beauty, true beauty, is not just skin deep; it goes far beyond the face, the body, and society’s ideal vision of it. It is the people I love and those around me, the experiences I have had, the world I live in, and yes, it is life itself – which includes you and me!

I am beautiful the way I am, just as you are, and I believe that our uniqueness makes it so. Imperfections (what are those, and by whose standards are they measured anyway?) enrich life if you choose to embrace them as being part of the real you. We all have a beauty that comes not just from our ‘outside’ appearance but also from ‘within’, and sometimes it takes a tragic event or life-changing circumstances for that realisation to happen, but when it does, as it did for me, it changes everything.

It was in 2015, when I experienced bullying that I had to reach deep within while trying to fathom out who I really was. This started my journey of self-discovery, which continues to this day. A journey through my dear mum’s passing in 2017 and my pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2020. Two years and two lots of six months of chemotherapy later, I am still here.

It’s in the small things that I now find beauty: waking each morning to a new day, glancing at my neighbour’s beautiful garden, and realising that I am alive; the laughter of children playing, a stranger’s smile, a kind word said. And self-acceptance when tracing the scars on my body, looking at the lines on my face, and embracing my greying hair. Instead of thinking of how I used to be, I feel fulfilled with the ‘me’ of today.

What can be more beautiful than that?

Beauty is... by Ruth Caukwell