ephemerality is beautiful and so am i
beauty isn't something i thought i'd write about anytime soon, but it came to me during a stream of thoughts. my posts tend to be born this way.
ever since i transitioned, beauty has shifted in meaning for me, personally. i'm at a point where i don't deny my own beauty1 and that i am perceived as conventionally attractive. there was a time when i did deny this, but perception hardly changed. being called beautiful was often in the context of compliments, lilted or sultry. it also within in the context of presenting as more feminine than not. yes, i'm aware that there's a word for beautiful men: handsome. but, over time, i wondered, "why can't you be masculine and beautiful?"
often with the men i've been fond of, partnered or passing through, i've called them "beautiful" at least once. sometimes it's met with an amused scrunching of the nose that told me, "me? beautiful? do i look feminine?" followed by a brief self-examination of presentation. sometimes it's a similar reaction, but one with a shroud of humbled timidity. either which way, it's perplexing to men. (it's cute to see a man flustered in this way, though. i won't lie.)
i often wonder this. beauty is associated with women, and this specific type of beauty is within a certain period of a woman's life, typically when she's "young." somewhere after 18 but before her later 20s, perhaps, but this is a gross estimate. i don't even know what "looking your age" means anymore. i get told i look like i'm in my early 20s still. some people in their 20s look much older. it's all relative, but somehow being at "most beautiful" is assigned to youth. children can be beautiful, though, to their parents, but this type of "beauty"--one relating to parental doting--is distinct from the kind i am talking about. the type of "beauty" i have in mind is informed by desire.
honestly, this preconception of beauty was a reason i didn't fully let myself, be myself. i felt like i would lose access to affection and companionship if i fully embraced my own masculinity. i noticed it in social spaces, on dating apps, among those i know personally and strangers alike. beauty has a currency i held onto deeply, despite my inner contradictions of self-esteem. even if i didn't think highly of my looks, others did. i got treated better if i made efforts to look conventionally beautiful. i'd see the reception my selfies would get when i'd look more feminine than not. it felt bad to not get recognition for all parts of me, but it felt good for the parts that did.
beauty meant what it did to me then because i determined its value based on outer perceptions. i mean, isn't everything influenced by something else, one way or another? if beauty is influenced by anything, it's time. going back to the earlier point about youth, i recall having a sense of urgency if i had a nice "look" going, one that i was proud of and received high praise from others.
typing that made me think of the women in my family, the older generations that still use facebook. a lot of their profile pictures are either a photo from their early adulthood--one personally determined as their "best"--or a recent one they find acceptable to be front and center. they take beauty very, very seriously. a running joke in my community is a woman will know she's old when people go from calling her señorita to señora.2 even forms of address aren't safe.
i get it but i don't. i always thought the women i grew up around were beautiful. this didn't change when they got older, either. i know their beauty was immortalized in these moments, with analog or digital means, and that seemed to carry over into my own adulthood. i needed to document it all, even if i felt sick at the sight of myself in the mirror. having a record was more important than how i felt then. this plagued them once, and it was passed down to me. an heirloom of protecting desirability.
accepting my transness, though, was the pathway to accepting my own beauty as it is. of all things, it took leaning into becoming something i didn't think to be beautiful without exception. aging, too.
i really started to feel aware of the passage of time in the later bits of 29. it frightened me, and i braced myself for something terrible. i couldn't have told you what was awaiting for me, i just know i was terrified. one of the first things i did on my 30th birthday was look at myself in the mirror. midwest winter, so i slept in a compressive top that was the sweet spot of binding and being able to take a deep breath. i woke up as the most authentic version of myself without realizing.
i looked and saw him, me. a man. beautiful.
at this juncture, i was less concerned with how i was perceived. i was comfortable with myself enough to not totally informed by conditional desire. i was comfortable enough. about 85%. i surrounded myself with people who witnessed me as i am, pre-transition and everything after, and loved me for being me. some even knew i was trans masc before i did. many of these people knew me for years, nearing a decade, while others knew me for a few months. still, i wasn't beautiful for the sake of it, or in a way that was beneficial to them. i was (am) me, and that's beautiful in and of itself.
it really does start at home, though. i started to curate rituals to settle into this new age of mine. i looked in the mirror more. i stopped throwing any random thing on. i was intentional. i put effort into the things people can and can't see. i nurtured hobbies. i took more pictures. i did things that reminded me of how beautiful i was, am.
i will say this. my favorite time of day is deconstructing the outer look i created following a day out. most days, i swipe on a lip stain--just enough to spread with my fingertips into a feathered outline on my lips--and detangle my hair by hand. i base my clothing choices on whether i feel more femme or masc the day of. really depends! either way, lip stain is crucial. (or lip balm at the minimum, especially on days where i forget.) it's the last thing i remove, too. peel away the clothes, then take down hair (if pinned up), then slough off makeup.
during a day out, i touch my lips up from time to time, but lately, i put just enough to be pigmented enough at the start, then let it be as it is as i take a drink, eat food, make expressions. sometimes it's smeared on accident, or in passion. it's different every time i use it. color longevity is a big ingredient in many people's decision to buy lip products, but not me, to an extent at least. as long as it ages as gracefully as it is temporary, then it's a staple.
the social constraints of beauty are ephemeral, but being beautiful isn't.
beautiful beautiful beautiful. that's a word that doesn't grow dull with repetition. bee-you-tee-full. say it in the mirror three times for a free hug from yourself.