It Is Indeed A Beautiful Life

A few people, maybe quite a few, who I know are unhappy with their lives. Some are extremely unhappy, disappointed and at breaking point.

Looking at the details of some of their circumstances, it would be challenging not to acknowledge that the circumstances are less than ideal.

With the mortgage or rent overdue, car payments persistently late, children school fees astronomically high and cell phone bill through the roof, one cannot but admit that they are struggling.

Does that however means that life is ugly?

Late last night while I was still at work trying to reconcile an account - something that is not my favourite thing to do but I am covering (again) for a colleague - the night cleaning crew came in. One of the ladies told me that it is her 65th birthday next year and she will be retiring after being with our organization for 40 years. "Time to enjoy life," she said as she passed her broom under my desk or my "house" as she likes to call it.

It is not my habit to compare my journey with anyone else's but as she said that I made two comparisons. First, it would be the death of me were I to spend 40 years working before I could enjoy my life. Nope, not doing it. 

I would rather have low paying, seasonal work for the rest of my days, positions that allowed me to have enough money to travel inexpensively by any means to meet and greet life in all its manifestations.

The second thing that came to me and I shared it with her, was her use of the word "house." When I worked in the penal system here in Canada, some long term inmates called their cells "my house." I always smiled when I heard it and invariably reflected on the one that I would be driving to after work. There was no physical comparison between the two - what with all the fandangles in mine and the pictures stuck to the walls with tape in theirs.

Yet, while most would exchange places with me any second, at the time many of them were intrinsically more happy that I was. You see, the janitor now and me back then, with all we have, we are/were on pause. The intimates were making the most of what they had.

Beauty is all around us. It simply requires our attention to it.

Sharing on my page earlier this morning, I mentioned that: "Life can be stressful or sweet...it all depends on your view, your attitude and how you choose to respond. Take mine in the last 12 hours. My daughter and I had a "moment" - a tense one. We both went to our respective beds a bit annoyed at each other.

This morning I got up intent on making the day sweet. What happened? We've idled away the last couple hours, playing with the baby and playing dress up in high heel shoes that I simply cannot wear!

Your choice, your life! Damned or Diamond."

It really is our individual choice to make a beautiful life for ourselves. What I know without a single doubt is that nothing much is required but our heart and eyes. My life has changed materially, from plenty to just enough. With that movement has come clarity of vision, pureness of heart and a resolve to never again be ungrateful.

Life is beautiful as you and I believe it to be. Dare to believe right now, wherever you are and with whatever you possess.

Have a beautifully blessed day!

You're Beautiful!

Claudette Esterine

Every morning I get a couple of texts. Sometimes it is three but they all basically say the same thing and they are from different people.

"Good of the morning to you, Putus," says one person.

"Good morning beautiful," says the other with a kissing emoticon.

The third is more recent and from someone new to my life; as well as to openly displaying emotions, "Hi!"

A warm fuzzy feeling creeps up from my toes to my heart as these message come in. For most of my life, hearing that I am beautiful was a very rare occurrence. In all fairness to him, it was my estranged husband who was the first to constantly say those words.

It really is ironic that it took "so long" to hear those words, over 35 years. According to her story, although officially she named me Claudette, my mother's nickname for me was "Cutie."

I never felt cute.

Not with the beatings and other names that she plastered on me as her economic situation spiraled. The names were just as bad as the ones she labelled my absent "good for nothing" father.

Little wonder that very often when people called me "Cutie," they might just as well have said "Dirty," "Useless," "Would-Turn-Out-To-Nothing" or even "Whore." That is what I heard.

They say 'name it and claim it' and an angel must have guided me away from the label "whore," which was my mother's favourite for me. No, I was not a wild teenager but my mother was a conflicted, contradictory woman. In the same breath that she was calling me "Cutie," she was beating the crap out of me and proclaiming my future as a Madam. Yes, she knew I had brains so I would not settle for being a streetwalker but would run the joint.

Occasionally my partner of 16 years would say, "You look good." That is as far as the compliments went. The love between us was strong and ran deep but those words simply were not uttered.

Maybe I was not beautiful?

Slim or even skinny was never my body type. By the time I turned 16, my body was fully developed and curves were accentuating all the "right" places. Only in my 40's did I began sporting blonde hair but it was not on the stereotypical head that goes with that colour. My hair was either sheared off or in dreadlocks (as it is now).

I am not a big fan of being out in the sun, so my caramel skin has always been only slightly darker than it is now. My lips are very much representative of a person of African-descent and my mouth and somewhat crooked teeth were shaped by my thumbsucking well into late life.

That, my everlasting sucking of my thumb, was what spoiled my beauty. Well that is what my mother said. It seemed to me back then that my Father's siblings agreed on at least that with her as the one and only time I stayed at the "Esterine" house, I was constantly being threatened with having my thumb stuck in the dog's butt! I kid you not!

Suffice it to say, my self-esteem barely had a pulse well into my late 30's.

Ironically, it took being out of my homeland and among strangers, particularly Caucasian ones, for me to start hearing that I was really "Cute" or beautiful. The years spent in Europe opened my eyes to my own physical beauty. My decade plus residency in Canada has seen me fully blossom into it.

It took an opening up to Life for me to know that I am beauty-filled and that my physical features have nothing to do with it.

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Buck teeth, thick lips, nappy hair, stretch marks and all, I never miss an opportunity to look in any mirror to see the beauty that is pouring from me.

Yes, beauty like happy is an inside job; and they are also best friends!

Go now, look in the mirror and tell that beauty-filled person smiling at you how gorgeous they are!

Have a radiant day!

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Claudette Esterine is the Founder of DOS Foundation, Editor of our blog, a trained Chaplain, spiritual counsellor, communications professional and Nature's Pearl Independent Distributor. In her spare time she manages the call center of an Edmonton-based not-for-profit organization