When Love Was My Silver Lining Among The Dark And ‘Ugly’ Clouds

Calling a person ugly only hurts them. They lose their self-worth and start questioning themselves. Here’s a beautiful story of healing with love.

Throughout my childhood, I encountered people – including my near and dear ones – who repeatedly mentioned how ugly I looked. Some times, openly but mostly between the lines. It wasn’t just their words but their actions that proved the same. During festivals, the least appealing clothes were given to me with a note, “What difference would it make?”

I felt bad, dejected and some times even betrayed by my own people, but I didn’t say a word. For I thought, time would heal it all.

Familial support

Thankfully, through all this, my family continued to support me unconditionally, even when the world shunned me. However, they were quite worried and often sad.

I disliked being a part of get togethers, family functions and festivals where the topic of discussion inadvertently and some times, deliberately, centred around me and how I looked. There were discussions that I did not take after my mother who was extremely beautiful.

Why was I called ugly?

As I child, I couldn’t understand how I could be termed ugly, a term I had only heard in bed-time stories. However, these taunts just added to my self-esteem going lower. It went on to a point where I was unable to develop enough self-confidence. My self-worth was dwindling. I lacked the courage to befriend people.

There were times when men I secretly liked, chose other women. This left me shattered and broken but slowly it made sense that it is one’s disposition that is measured.

Love did find its way

There was a time when I completely shut myself off from the beautiful feeling called love. Yet it made its way into my life quite surprisingly. While almost everyone thought I didn’t deserve a lot, he thought I deserved everything beautiful. He became the Midas to my aspirations. And quite magically, with immense love, he turned those 26 hateful years into a forgotten nightmare.

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We completed nine years of knowing each other, of which we spent seven years being married and five as parents. With each passing day, we only see our love for each other grow.

I thank all those unpleasant past experiences as they actually helped me count my blessings every day.

Picture credits: Unsplash

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