Beauty in the eye of the beHOLDER

It's nice to be called beautiful. It's even nicer when it's someone other than my mother. I read a book about the 5 love languages - the premise being that everyone has a particular love language which is their 'first' tongue - a way of speaking and communicating with them that makes them feel loved and appreciated. The five love languages were: personal touch, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, and gifts. I did the quiz a few years back - absolutely convinced in my stubborn self that it was absolute B.S. and a collosal waste of time, but I thought I would humour my boyfriend and the counsellor and take the test. My first love language is "words of affirmation". I laughed, because I was sure it would be "touch" - I mean, I love being touched, carressed, so why would I give two shakes what someone said to me or wrote me? The third was "acts of service".

I went home and was grabbing something from my night table drawer, when I had to pause. In my top drawer, I had a note from my son, a birthday card from my boyfriend, a handmade bookmark saying "you're the best mommy" and a few other notes I ran my fingers over. So here was the evidence. I am a 'words of affirmation' person. I feel loved, cherished, appreciated when someone writes the words down or utters them, these are the words that make my heart sing.

Skip forward to 'you're beautiful'. These words were uttered to me many, many moons ago. I was 18 and in a dry bar (unheard of now, but back in Saskatoon in the 90's, there was a bar you could go to that didn't serve alcohol). I had come to Saskatoon to pursue higher education, but really I had come to escape the small town life and live in the big metropolis of Saskatoon. I wanted to be a big city girl, and here I was, standing next to a 2nd year Engineer, still sweating from dancing with him to Autograph's "Turn up the radio", and almost swooning when he said "you're beautiful." I'm sure I responded with something sexy like "neato" but I honestly don't remember.

What I do remember is him offering to give me a ride home, and me, very naively, accepting. I also remember him driving me to a park and wanting to make out a little. I was a little nervous but thought I could handle a kiss or two - but was pulling the plug when it turned into a full out, knock down, mach-3 grope session - the man sprouted hands and arms like an octopus - all the while, sucking my face like a full on incubus. I managed to push him away, and tell him that I wanted to go home. He laughed and said "not until I'm done with you" and grabbed the door handle I was trying to push open.

It was at this point, I got scared and reacted in a true Serena fashion. I turned back to him, grabbed a HOLD of his crotch, and, while squeezing, I said "If you don't let go of that door handle, you will be singing soprano for the rest of your life" with a very incessant clench at the end to reiterate my point. Beauty in the eye of the beHOLDer - I checked off all three love languages: words of affirmation (I was very affirmative as to what I was about to do if he didn't let me go);personal touch - having your fingers digging into a scrotum doesn't get much more personal than that; acts of service - oh, I was servicing myself just fine. Bottom line - it was beautiful.

note: I am not advocating that people should put themselves in dangerous positions. What I do advocate is that we find the courage to look after ourselves when needed - therein lies the beauty.