Beauty

I was recently cast in a play. A play that I am quite excited to be a part of. An ever so slightly absurdist farce version of Macbeth. The cast is pretty fantastic and I sincerely look forward to working with them. And as several of my friends have pointed out, many of these women I'll be working with are quite pleasing to the eye.

I've come to the conclusion that I really don't give a shit.

At this point in my life a pretty smile, face, or pleasantly shaped body has as much interest as gardening or dancing. Which is to say, I can see the appeal but don't really care. The shape of their silhouette has the same weight as the shape of their elbow. Their face with the back of their hand.

I've lost interest. Physical beauty bores me at the moment. Attraction seems tiring. My default reaction is to set to "oh. well. That's nice I suppose. Can you step out of my way? You're blocking the door. I have things to accomplish."

Which I'm fully aware sounds very mean. And perhaps a little sexist. But it's pretty much the way it is. I've chased after pretty faces for so very long. All it's done is left me feeling rejected and alone. Now that has very little to do with my ideas on beauty I just need to explain why I don't care about pretty girls as much. Why "there will be beautiful women there" is not in any way a selling point to me anymore. There was a point not too long ago where I would start to get angry about it. Angry at myself for my desires. Angry for wanting what I couldn't have. But that just got too tiring to be worth it.

Now they're just another person. Which has me less worried about sexism. Sometimes it's still hard. There is a part of me that still wants that happily ever after dream I foolishly feel entitled too. But that part seems to hold less and less weight. I've become less concerned with beauty. Less concerned with finding somebody special. Not because I want it any less, but because I don't have the time to waste on it anymore.

As a poet, a writer, and an actor, beauty is not something I can simply deny in my life. It's pursuit is the only true one. It's just that sometimes in chasing the distilled beauty in art, we are forced to face the ugliness in our own lives.