‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.’
The Velveteen rabbit by Margery Williams
Today, I was in a reminded that there’s an again in real.
Or at least something that happens again as we try to discover more about who we are and how authentic we are being.
It was another Facebook post that reminded me of these words from The Velveteen Rabbit.
The woman had posted about how the barista thought her life was golden because she stopped there everyday in her dressy work clothes and was planning a trip to Italy.
Sounds pretty grand to me. Yet, like Genevieve V Georget in her 2015 post the barista didn’t know the back story either.
Ms. Georget says that she spent the entire flight to Italy wondering about authenticity and how the barista unintentionally made her feel like a total fraud. “Because I’m not any of those things that this girl sees on the other side of her coffee bar,” she said.
In retrospect, she said:
I do know one thing for sure; that even with all of my frailty … all of my fears … and all my faults … none of those things make my life any less golden. Scars tell stories. Scars mean survival. Scars mean you showed up for the fight instead of running from it. And we’ve all got them … even the sweet girl serving my coffee.
Genevieve V Georget
Because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand. ❤
TotallyKris 