Saturday, Jun. 15, 2019 - 9:57 a.m.

That photo on IG is up to 325 likes now. Weird.

Thinking about embroidering mosquito larvae on something. Maybe my Florida tee that I had block printed the slugs on.

I have all these lovely young people on my FB feed. Some are fat, some are trans, some are both. Disabled. And they often ask for validation. And everyone gives them validation that they are beautiful/handsome and desirable.

I do this too. It’s the caring thing to do.

But I wish I could knock the legs out from under that assumption that beautiful is what we need to be. That we must rush to reassure them they are because agreeing that they aren’t would be devastating.

We can say “you aren’t conventionally beautiful but you have gorgeous eyes and a warm smile”, and that’s nice.

But it would be better to somehow take the pressure off to be beautiful. To help people feel valuable and secure without that particular property.

Of course that’s easy for me to say. But when you’re 23, maybe you want a relationship or three, and the rejection hurts.
And obviously I can’t just come into a thread and say, “eh, what’s beauty anyway? Who cares if you aren’t attractive?” That’s not what they need there and then.

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