What I've Learned: Confidence = Beauty

The first 11 days of 2012 have underwhelmed me. I got sick. I feel fat. I've managed to cultivate simultaneous zits and wrinkles. And, yes, I've been wallowing. Just a bit.

Then, as I watched the "People's Choice Awards," something hit me. It wasn't just that I am a person and I would have chosen to have a lot more Clooney and a lot less Pattinson on the ballot. Or that there seems to be a flock of sensory deprived stylists winging their ways through Hollywood at the moment.

No, what occurred to me as I sat in sweats with my hand jammed into a bowl of butter with some popcorn floating around in it, was that even with questionable fuchsia lipstick choices (I'm talking to you Lea "hot lips" Michelle) or oddly dyed gray/violet hair (you know who you are, Kelly Osborne) these young starlets are, for the most part, beautiful.

So what if their dress is tacky or their hair is piled sky high or if they didn't hit the familial genetic jackpot, these girls think they look great. Even if they're nervous on the inside and quivering in the limo mere nano-moments before stepping a Loub onto the red carpet, they manage to summon the inner confidence to pull off their looks -- to quell that inner "can I really DO this?" gremlin and strut their stuff with both style and conviction. And, THAT, above all the baubles and Botox and boobs, is what makes them shine.

What did this semi-revelation leave me with? Did it instill a newfound conviction that I, too, can check my insecurities at the door and be miraculously catapulted in to Elle Macpherson's stratosphere of beauty? Well yes, as a matter of fact, it did.

Ok, maybe not.

But later that night, while attempting to dislodge stubborn popcorn shrapnel from between several teeth, a kernel of an idea did present itself to me and it went something like this; "Hey dummy, if you don't think you're beautiful, if you don't love yourself and your wrinkles, flab, pock marks, stretch marks, and all, how can you expect anyone else to?"

Not an entirely original thought, I'll admit (I'm pretty sure Oprah -- remember her? -- did no fewer than 23 "A-Ha" episodes on the very topic). Nor is it necessarily one for the folks at Nobel. But sometimes, a little inner pep talk is all it takes to get back on track. And, if a renewed sense of self can come from watching a hokey Hollywood event, then I say bring on awards season!

(Don't worry, it's not all sunshine and lollipops around here, there're some Devil Dogs and tequila poppers too, especially when it comes to how I feel about my neck!)