the moral of the story

i was speaking with my friend the other day and she told me one of the saddest thing's i'd ever heard.

this girl is beautiful but i have noticed throughout my years of friendship with her that she is rarely seen without make up. the few times i have caught her lounging around au naturale, she looks so gorgeous it makes me wonder why she ever even bothers getting gussied up in the first place! so i finally get around to asking my friend the reason for the unnecessarily (still beautiful!) made up face, and she tells me a story that simply broke my heart.

what my friend said was that years ago she was dating a guy for quite some time and so the two of them went out for an afternoon. she had been toying with the idea of not going through her usual make up routine and thought since she was comfortable with her significant other, this afternoon would serve well for a test run. she met him at a restaurant and he immediately noticed her bare face. appalled, he exclaimed "where is your make up!" to which she replied quite timidly "oh, i don't know, i thought maybe i wouldn't wear any today..." (leaving her response open ended enough for him to encourage her and embrace the risk) to which he replied "babe. there are some girls in this world who have the face for no make up. you're just not one of them. it's ok, did you bring any? maybe you can go put some on now."

as if this isn't self explanatory and sad enough, i must say the saddest part was when she told me she believed it to be true. she said that since he had said it she thought "well, i must not be one of those girls and he was probably doing me a favor by telling me so" and since then she has been careful not to let anyone see her so "exposed," which is, in actuality, the best she can look.

i learned such a great lesson from this conversation: the weight of our words can be carried by the receiver for years to come. i had never thought about this. one sentence that i say could last longer than the few seconds it took to be spoken. this boy who emotionally scarred my friend so deeply, who altered her lifestyle-her everyday morning routine, who stripped her self confidence, is walking around somewhere none the wiser. he may not even remember saying this to her.

that saying "sticks and stones will break my bones but words can never hurt me" is completely false. the saying "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" is more like it.

choosing words wisely,

madeline