B is for Beautiful

It was a while back that I stumbled upon this blog whose author had a love-project for a year. I don’t remember her name or the circumstances but she wrote about this thing she did or heard about titled “You’re beautiful”.

She posted pictures where mostly hand-written messages were left in various places: in a public bathroom, at the supermarket, on the car window, at the coffee shop, basically anywhere where people could accidentally find them.

All they said was various versions of “You’re beautiful. Love yourself.”

I imagined what would it be like, finding a message like that when I’m looking at the bathroom window and as usual, seeing the worst parts of me. What would it make me feel? I know I’d hold onto it. Crack a smile at it. Probably wouldn’t believe it but maybe, just maybe, if I’d said it to myself often enough, it would get through the cracks.

So I wrote up some of those to share. They’re anonymous so there’s no way of knowing what happens them after you let them go but I don’t mind. I put them in library books and imagined the face of the person who finds them. They’d look around, thinking it’s a joke, throw it away maybe. Or cry a little because it’s been so long that anybody told them how beautiful they were. Or just smile at the memory of being in somebody’s arm, whispering that exact phrase in their ears.

It doesn’t really matter. What matters is the gesture, the kindness that’s sent out through these messages. How they are received is out of my hands.

Have you seen messages like that or have you written up anything like this yourself?