Some days, I catch my reflection without meaning to — in a window, a spoon, the black screen of my phone — and I freeze, just for a second. Not because I see perfection. But because I see me, unguarded. There’s something tender about that. A softness in my gaze I never used to notice. A quiet familiarity that feels, finally, like home.
I used to believe beauty had to be proven. That it lived in symmetry, in smoothness, in being chosen. I spent years measuring myself against impossible versions, shrinking to fit into someone else's frame. I thought the more I disappeared, the prettier I became. But all that did was make me a stranger to myself.
Now, at 33, beauty feels different — less curated, more embodied. It’s in how I carry my tiredness without shame. In how I let my voice fill a room. It’s the grace I extend to myself when I don’t meet my own expectations. And how I let joy crease the skin around my eyes without needing to erase it.
I don’t always feel beautiful, no. But I feel whole. And that wholeness has a glow I never knew to look for. It’s not in filters or praise or fitting in. It’s in showing up, again and again, with kindness for the woman I’m still becoming. That, to me, is the most beautiful kind of becoming.
So here I am — not perfect, not polished, but present. I’ve stopped chasing beauty like it’s something outside of me. These days, I return to it like a place I get to live in. Like a truth I’m finally allowed to believe. And maybe that’s what changes everything.
All photographs and content used in this post are my own. Therefore, they have been used under my permission and are my property.
