Jaden Norrick: "New Eyes"

The first time someone tells me I am beautiful, I am 16 years old.

Sure, my mom and grandmother had told me I was gorgeous, immaculate from birth but their opinions have always been spoken with rose colored breaths.

Sure, whenever I told someone I thought they were pretty, they followed up with their own, "Oh, you're pretty too!" with a smile so cheerful and yet did not fully reach their eyes.

Sure, my audience has always protested anytime I said I was too fat, too tall, too loud, too much. "What? No! You are beautiful!" The slight hitch in their voice telling me their response was ready and loaded, awaiting the trigger words.

But the first time I am told I am beautiful, unprompted, with no expectation behind the words, it is 22 days after my birthday and I am at the grocery store, picking up whip cream for my mom.

I'm wearing jeans and a sweater, my hair is in a messy ponytail I did in the car, I'm not wearing makeup, and I haven't looked in a mirror in two days. My face is relaxed as I set two tubs of frozen Prairie Farms Whipped Topping on the black conveyor belt. I have dazed out, thinking about homework and chores and work, when the cashier's confident voice pulls me back to the IGA checkout line.

"Ya know, you're really beautiful. I love your eyes."

I am, to say the least, confused. My eyebrows shoot to my hairline with surprise. I glance over my shoulder making sure she was talking to me. I was the only one in line. She's putting the tubs in a plastic bag as I say, "Oh, um, thank you." But it comes out as more of a question.

She smiles a slightly crooked smile at me, shrugs her shoulders, and tells me my total. I pull a handful of crumpled bills from my pocket. As I try to straighten them out, my brain is in overdrive. I am racking my mind for how I know this woman, or how she knows me. Maybe she feels sorry for me. Or is playing some kind of joke or experiment.

My brain, trying to find the logical explanation, is racing from concept to concept. It cannot wrap around this idea of a complete stranger saying something nice about me for no apparent reason. I’ve known nothing but fabricated compliments and fraudulent smiles. What’s so different about her?

Before I leave, I turn to look her up and down. She’s wearing jeans and an IGA t-shirt. Her name tag, pinned to her chest, reads “Dianne.” Dianne is middle aged with short brown hair. She has rough, tan skin freckled by fake UV rays. Her eyes are surrounded by deep wrinkles placed carefully by laughter. Her iridescent pink lips are set in an easy smile. I think about her smile all day. It even keeps me awake into the night. I am thinking of this woman, whose life I do not know, as I try to convince the ceiling to be less interesting.

I don’t know what life has used to harden Dianne. But I do know that it did not work fully. Her eyes are still soft. Her eyes still saw me. I fall asleep knowing a stranger saw something that I could not see myself, that I could not convince myself others saw before now. I’m lulled to sleep by a fullness I haven’t known before.

I move through the next day, trying to find others to fill. The woman with shiny grey hair at work. The girl singing to herself in class. The boy with beautiful brown eyes.

They always smile. Sometimes the kind of smile that crinkles their eyes. Other times it's a small pull at one side of their face. These smiles fill me back up. I’m always waiting to spill over again, into the next stranger.

I hope they can’t stop thinking about someone noticing them. I hope they keep filling up others. I hope Dianne knows she started a ripple through this universe that gives others confidence, joy, and love. I hope she knows that, today when I say thank you, I mean it.