Good Enough

But there’s always one of them who looks at you
    with longing.
And that scares you the most,
Because if you let that longing into your heart, you
  have to
    accept yourself
    just the way you are.



Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw (1994)

It’s hard to. I don’t think I’ve ever accepted myself the way I am. I should, but I don’t – I can’t.

On good days (when I wake up with reasonably clear skin and acceptably good hair, and when the planets are favorably aligned), I look in the mirror and think maybe I’m not all that unpleasant to look, and maybe I could be attractive. Maybe. And maybe I’m not that fat if nothing (that shouldn’t be sticking out) sticks out or hangs over.

I know – low self-esteem and lousy body-image and all that jazz.

When I was a little girl, I was always told how pretty I was, with my thick and very black hair, and fair skin, by my Mom and relatives and strangers alike. Then I grew a little older, and I was still pretty to them, even though looking at the photos now, it’s clear to me I was a fat nine year-old (my blue health booklet confirmed my suspicions: I was overweight – by a whole 30%).

At nine, I had compulsory swimming lessons one day every week (in place of Phys Ed). That was when my Mom started telling what a pity it was that the chlorine in the water had ruined my hair. That same year, the school dentist told me I needed braces, but I was reluctant to see an orthodontist because I’d been told by friends braces were uncomfortable – even painful – to wear. I wasn’t self-conscious of my appearance then.

As an adolescent, I learned to care – maybe to the point of obsession – about how I look. If you were cute and/or attractive, you would be popular, and people are nicer to you; you could get away with a lot more than the less good-looking kids.

I wasn’t the only one to worry about my appearance - my Mom was concerned about three things: my skin, my hair, and my weight. She took me for a facial when I was fifteen because I had a terrible case of acne; she always remarked how nice my hair had been as a little girl, and how damaged it had became; she also thought I should stop snacking as to not put on more weight. My Dad indirectly contributed to the weight issue by making jokes about how big my thighs were, and how I’d obviously taken after his side of the family – that is, pale and chubby, with thunder thighs and no discernible waist-line.

Guys in school I didn’t know well were nice to me. The guys I hung out with, sometimes they’d tell me how cute I was, or that I looked sweet; so when I acted petulantly and made unreasonable demands of them, they nearly always gave in. I wasn’t terribly pretty, but I guess I must have been good-looking enough.

Then, growing older still, I started getting picked up by strange men – not very often, just once in a while. In my warped mind, I thought getting picked up was quite flattering – albeit disconcerting; but then I started thinking over this pick-up thing and I decided it was less flattering than it was patronizing. Yet, even though I don’t want to need a man to validate my self-worth and attractiveness, it’s still hard to not secretly feel a little flattered.

Last summer, relatives and family friends who visited my family during the Lunar New Year remarked I’d lost weight and looked prettier. Those who didn’t mentioned weight-loss told me I should remain as I was - physically.

When I came back to Welly, the first thing Jen’d said to me was, “You’ve lost a lot of weight.” I don’t know about my weight, but I know for a fact I’d dropped one bra size (thank Goddess it wasn’t a cup size) and lost two inches off my ass. I didn’t like it at all. The truth was, back at home, I’d only looked how I look because the heat’d killed my appetite; I didn’t feel like eating even when I was hungry, and I’d gone to bed, starving, nearly every night. I don’t think that had been healthy at all.

I find that everywhere I go, everybody seems to be sending me the message that looks matter: I shouldn’t have bad hair, or skin, or teeth, and I should never be – Goddess forbid! - fat. To make it worse, one's attractiveness seems to have a bearing on one's worth: if you're not good-looking, then you aren't worth shit. If it were just the media, I can always ignore it, but when it’s your family and relatives telling you that, there’s just no practical way of completely ignoring them.

I want to be able to feel attractive by my own assessment; I want to feel I have worth measured by my own yardstick ... but I’ve found it all but impossible to do so. I just can’t seem to accept myself as I am – all of myself, from my inner self to my outer self, from head to toes. I can’t receive a compliment without countering it with disparaging remarks about myself.

Somebody comes along in my life who finds me attractive, both inner and outer selves, and tells me that, I can only wish to believe them. I’ve always wished; I’ve never been able to believe. I always wonder how they could’ve found me attractive – a fat, pale girl with the IQ of a wallflower and the EQ of a doormat, and crooked teeth and damaged hair.

I can’t seem to get of out thinking I’m not good enough, not attractive enough, not worthy enough – probably because I’ve always believed that I’m not, and never will be.

And this is fucking me up, fucking my life up - never being good enough.