Beauty is a curse. It enchants and bewitches, and like all curses, will one day be broken. We live with it from the day we’re born. We’re told we’re beautiful, perfect, gorgeous.

We’re put on pedestals and admired from afar. We’re treated like princesses and given grand dreams of our beauty sending us off into the eternal happy ending.

We’re never told that our spotlight will fade, our
powers will dwindle and our princes will still yearn for the beauty of the young princesses.

Throughout the years, we’ll watch the once soft and supple skin we used to capture attention and lust become withered and wrinkled. We’ll bear witness to the changes of our mothers and grandmothers.

We’ll begin to shudder as we look at young
photographs of them, their youthful faces barely
recognizable now. We’ll finally be attuned to the harsh reality that this beauty we hold so dear, our soft skin and unmarred face, is more a curse than a power.

It’s an illusion, a fading whim. It’s a slow death, a
continual transformation. One day, we won’t have the power of smooth skin and perky breasts.
We won’t walk with the notion that our youthful good looks have the capacity to lure men and break hearts.

We won’t be the young beautiful princess who never ages. We won’t have the same power our 20-something image once held.

Instead, we’ll have something else.
Laugh lines and age spots… wrinkles and scars that tell stories. We’ll have skin that’s been through breakups and losses, fingers that have touched the world before some have even come to know it.

We’ll have arms that have wrapped around hundreds and eyes that have witnessed both birth and death.

We will get older — not uglier, just older. Our beaut ywill mold and transform along with us. We will never lose it, but it will look different. It’s the kind of beauty that’s endearing and respectable.

And any man you’re supposed to be with will also see that.

You’re looking for that man who is less like Prince
Charming and more like a Great Guy. He’s not trying to save you, just be with you. He will see your beauty as you see it: ever-changing and evolving.

After years together, he won’t look at you as the
shadow of the young girl he married, but the woman he’s loved for years. He’ll watch your beauty evolve and transform with awe and tenderness.

He will never turn to younger women, lusting and
yearning after their youthful charm. Because it’s not about that with him. He knows your soul; he knows you better than anyone, and that depth is more beautiful and real than any 20-something’s nice tan.

HE LIKES YOU BEFORE HE LIKES
TO LOOK AT YOU.
Your beauty isn’t first for him. It’s something he
enjoys, but not something he expects. He sees you as a
soul, a counterpart, a person. He doesn’t see you as the
object of his desires or the prize he loves to mount in
the living room.

HE ONLY HAS EYES FOR YOU,
NOT THE NEXT BEST THING.
He doesn’t look at other women because there’s
nothing to look for. He found what he wanted and it’s
not your beauty that’s keeping him there, just like it’s
not another woman’s beauty who will take him away.

YOUR SMILE MADE HIM DO A
DOUBLE TAKE, NOT YOUR CAT-
EYE.
It wasn’t your face that made him turn around when he
passed you, but something that drew him to you. He
needed to look at you again, be near you for another
second. You pull him toward you with a force stronger
than your good looks.

HE TELLS YOU YOU STILL LOOK
BEAUTIFUL, HE DOESN’T
QUESTION IT.
He isn’t telling himself — he’s telling you. He sees you
for how you really look and the more he gets to know
you, the more your beauty grows. He ages alongside
you, your face only becoming more familiar and more
beautiful with the years.

HE LIKES TO SHOW YOU A
GOOD TIME, NOT SHOW YOU
AROUND.
He doesn’t take you out because he likes how good
you look on his arm, he takes you out because he can’t
stay away from you. Nothing is the same without you,
nothing is as fun.
Whether it’s at a crowded restaurant or the quiet
seclusion of your home, it’s not about how you look
with him, it’s just about being with him.

HE’S IN AWE OF WHAT YOU
SAY, NOT HOW YOU LOOK.
He loves what you say, not how you look saying it. He
waits, anticipates and yearns to hear you talk. He loves
your stories and hearing your voice on the phone. He
finds comfort in your words and could listen to you
talk all day.

HE’S EAGER TO SHOW OFF
YOUR BRAIN, NOT YOUR
BEAUTY.

When he takes you out with his friends, it’s not about
planting you in the corner. His friends enjoy you, the
same way they enjoy him. You’re not someone he feels
obligated to bring around, but excited to invite.

HE LAUGHS BECAUSE YOU’RE
FUNNY, NOT BECAUSE HE
WANTS YOU TO THINK YOU
ARE.
You’re one of the funniest people he knows. Whether
you guys have the same sense of humor, love the same
TV or he just thinks you’re hilarious, you know that
he’s not indulging you when water comes out of his
nose.