Should I go to the bathroom? My face is bleeding again but I’ve already walked into the restroom two times within the past hour. What will people think if I go in three times in a row? I was in a beautiful, bright coffee shop, sipping delicious coffee, and talking with my best friend. I should have been thinking about how nice of a day it was and how great it was to be able to meet up with Hayley before class, but instead I was worrying about my bleeding face and whether I should run into the restroom or not. I finally decided to dash into the tiny restroom and stare at myself in the mirror.

Now, despite how it might sound, I’m not vain. Far from it. I was staring at my bumpy, scabbing, oozing acne. It was all over my face but mostly on my chin, and one of them was bleeding profusely. Again. As I held a piece of toilet paper to my bleeding pimple for too many excruciating minutes, a new worry came to mind: People are probably wondering what I’m doing in the bathroom for so long. I made the not-so-ideal decision to face the public with a still bleeding pimple.

As I sat back down I informed Hayley, “I’m not sitting next to him.”

“Why not?!” Hayley implored.

“My acne is awful today.”

Oh please,” she said in obvious irritation. She was sick of arguing with me on the subject. For the past few weeks, she sent me inspirational quotes right before my African American Studies class in an attempt to get me to talk to one of my classmates. Since my brief mention of finding him “cute,” Hayley was determined to set us up, and I was determined to act impartial. After the escape of my last terrible relationship two years ago, I was convinced I’d be one of those women whose lives revolved around their careers. Still, despite my uncaring façade, I purposefully sat next to my new “cute” classmate every day in class but never said a word to him—hence Hayley’s inspirational quotes. And today, I was determined to not even sit next to him. There was no way he would be remotely interested in me when my acne was this bad.

And yet, as I walked into class, I found myself sitting next to him—partly out of habit and partly out of bravery and plain stubbornness.

And then, at the end of class, something miraculous happened. He turned to me and asked, “You’re on the girls Frisbee team right?”

“I was but I quit this year. You’re on the guys’ team right?”

“Yeah. Why’d you quit?” He looked sincerely disappointed as he asked me this, and I knew right then and there that he was actually interested in me.

We talked for a while and as we walked out of class he finally asked, “Are you going to the seminar tonight?”

“I wasn’t planning on it because I was going to yoga.”

“Aw okay.”

I thought for moment and suddenly asked myself, Miranda, what are you doing? 

“Actually, I’ll go if you’re going. I think I can still go to yoga and make it to the seminar in time.”

The rest is history.

I often tell Jared about how I almost didn’t sit next to him that day. I always ask him, “How could you have thought I was pretty with all of that acne?” His response is always, “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t notice it because I was too busy looking at every other beautiful thing about you. I could tell that you were a really good person.” Jared’s response made me realize two things:

#1 As human beings, we have a tendency to fixate on our negative attributes to the point where our positive attributes become almost invisible to us. Our views of ourselves become distorted. A person might be conventionally beautiful and yet still not see themselves as such because they fixate on their flaws. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder.

#2 There’s more to beauty than the outward appearance. There’s a sort of beauty within us. I like to think of it as a soul. Only some will look past your appearance and into your soul, but those that do are the one’s worth keeping because souls are everlasting and can be seen even on your worst days. Souls persist even when you’re angry and lash out or when you wake up in the morning with no make up on. Jared was able to look past my acne and see my soul that day.