She looks in the mirror and sees a bland, boring human
I look at her and see compassion, love, and strength
She is beautiful and refuses to see it
She traces her wrinkles and her scars
She feels that they are ugly reminders of her age
I look at them and see nothing but memories
Memories that make her the beautiful being she is
Her once young skin, shimmering in the sunlight
Broken by the men of yesterday, repaired by the man of today
On the outside, she is smiling and laughing
On the inside, I know she isn’t
On the outside, others would say she was shining
On the inside, her brain sends signal after signal, demanding every function of her body
She is struggling to be herself
To live how she wishes
But all I can do is remind her of her own beauty
Remind her that these are the things that make her who she is today
And most importantly, who I am today
I thank her
I treat her with the love and respect she deserves because she is ethereal
Yet I remember,
She is also human
imperfectly perfect in all of her ways
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Rowan chapter.