alice walker
...east accepting toward differences, and my physical "imperfection" caused me to be more reserved than I would have normally been. Almost every time I came in contact with someone new, I wondered if they were looking at my difference, and analyzing me to pieces. Later on, I came to realize that the only person doing the analyzing was myself. I believed for a long time that an attractive physical appearance was what determined beauty. I was so caught up in what everyone else thought of me when they looked at me, that I did not consider the fact that I was a healthy and normal girl who had all of the same capabilities as everyone else. Several years after her accident, Walker underwent an operation, which removed most of her scar. She remembers: "Almost immediately I become a different person from the girl who does not raise her head." Her perspective had changed after that. Now that she had raised her head, everything around her changed as well. It was all in the way she viewed herself: because she was able see herself as beautiful again, it was easier for her to see that others could look at her in the same way. ...