Dear Whoever,

Dear Whoever,

I will do whatever I can to make you believe that I am an air-brushed beauty queen. I will pluck, shave, and wax; apply, brush, condition, whiten, tan, dye, and moisturize; spritz, spray, scrub, and squeeze. I will take forever to do these things and I will take even longer to examine the results...and I will still find faults. But you will see results.

I will do whatever I can to make you believe that I am an angel. I will smile for the time that I'm around you, I'll be charming, witty, intelligent, and agreeable. I'll like your music, your TV shows, and your hobbies. Inside I will be tense, nervous, angry and resentful. I will have talked myself out of sharing my opinion a thousand times, I will have prayed a thousand times that God would give me the strength to continue being agreeable, and I will have forfeited one thousand pieces of my heart to give you everything...and I will become weaker every time. But you will feel loved.

And then a day will come when I'll be too exhausted to put up the front for you, so I will tell you that you're not right for me, and I'll never talk to you again. It's not fair, I know. But please be fair to me as well.

Please don't put me on a pedestal, don't expect too much from me, don't brag about me to your friends and family, don't call me a princess, don't tell me I'm perfect, don't picture me as your wife, don't tell me how wonderful you think I am. Please don't do these things...yet.

When you've seen me without makeup, unkempt, bloated, angry, anxious, and anguished and you still think I'm beautiful and you still think you love me, THEN you can tell me I'm beautiful and that you love me, and I will actually believe you.

I'm not saying that there isn't anything good about the true me. In fact, I have a lot of great qualities, but you have to wait a while to see them.

In the meantime, PLEASE do not indulge the person I'm trying to make you think I am.

Sincerely,

Alissa