More exploration of beauty

I sat in a long meeting today and during the course of it, noticed that one of the speakers had a scar running beneath Her throat, near her collarbone.

But She glowed with life. She was a survivor, of whatever it was that left that scar. And She was beautiful, in so many ways.

Real Women have scars. Real Women have laugh lines. Some wear glasses or use wheelchairs, others nurse aching joints. Some battle addictions or ghosts from Their past.

They have curves -- delightful flesh on Their bones and sometimes an extra bulge here or there that They just can't seem to make go away. Sometimes, too, They are gaunt and thin -- not from trying to be a catwalk wonder but from a battle against cancer that took on the wrong Woman and is losing.

They get angry sometimes. Sometimes They have raging moods. They get insecure or scared. They do the wrong things every so often.

But real Women are beautiful Women. Beautiful when They are angry, beautiful when They rejoice. Beautiful when They open Their eyes in the morning, before the first dab of make-up has been applied; and beautiful when They close Their eyes to sleep again at night. Beautiful when splattered with grease from fixing Their pickup truck or with dirt from the garden or the baby's breakfast.

Boys may love Girls but men love Women, real Women.