"The Music Won't Last" and Beauty

hi!

This weekend we showed the house to an interested family (it's not even on the market yet!), so I obviously had to make the finishing touches on gutting out my room. While doing so, I found this wonderful poem that I once had to read with some friends during school mass in elementary school (I went to a Catholic school).
This poem was written by a terminally ill young girl in a New York hospital.

Slow Dance

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the train slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
You better slow down,
Don't dance so fast,
Time is short,
The music won't last.

Do you run through each day on the fly?
When you ask how are you, do you hear the reply?
When the day is over do you lie in you bed,
With the next hundred colors running through your head?
You better slow down,
Don't dance so fast,
Time is short,
The music won't last.

Ever told your child 'we'll do it tomorrow',
And in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch--let a good friendship die,
Cause you never had time to call and say 'Hi'?
You better slow down,
Don't dance so fast,
Time is short,
The music won't last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere,
you miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It's like an unopened gift.........just thrown away.
Life is not a race,
So take it slower,
Hear the music,
Before the song is over.


This is a really good poem to take the time to read and remind myself to live in the moment and appreciate where I'm at and how I got to this point in my life. Yet, that is all I can do--the rest is left to fate and chance.

I was thinking while I was in my car today on the way to the Appleton mall with my family.... what is "natural beauty"? To me it doesn't depend solely on makeup or anything like that. To me, it depends on confidence and character. I believe someone can still be naturally beautiful with bright makeup colors on their face, but ONLY if that makeup is something true of their character; not just something they're trying to become, or something someone else wants to see on them. Natural beauty is doing what you want because YOU like it, and then owning up to it.
To me it is confidence in what you like and what you contribute to the world's humanity.

Not someone who thinks that they are cool, but someone who doesn't care if they're "in" or "out", and wouldn't give a damn either way. Does this make sense?

This is what I strive to find in myself. It is my goal for growing up.

Sleep on it or something if it doesn't make sense.

xoxx,
lizzie

p.s... 4 days left in Wisconsin, and 1 day on the road until I'm in North Carolina!

p.p.s...
I've been doing yoga with my sister lately! I'm sure this is what I look like... right?!