A Chang of Belief in Self-recognition

Our past may be too rough and uncomfortable for others to accept, but it's the "true colors" and our root. It's memories close to our hearts and it's what makes us who we are. Never want to hide and never afraid to show.
It's over the Thanksgiving break, my roommate invited me over to spend the holiday with her family. We were looking through old family pictures together. I showed her mine and talked about some fond memories. Then she started to look up her childhood pictures. She was sitting there saying something like she's not really pretty back then, the picture of her is like a nightmare. I know she had cleft palate when she was younger but she looks totally normal and pretty now. Then I went close to look at her picture, I have to say I wasn't prepared to see that. I mean I've heard of cleft palate, I know how that is but I didn't take it well when I saw the picture of her in that condition. How could this be my sweet roomie? I felt taken aback and later according to her had this grossed out look on my face. I thought I'm an openminded, sensitive and absolutely supportive person. I still remember what I said to her at that moment. Now it sounds so ridiculous. I asked her why hasn't she deleted those super creepy photos of her for good. I might even suggested it looks awkward and uncomfortable for other "normal" people, who don't grow up with that. Then I saw the puzzled look on her face, but I wasn't paying attention to that because I was still all about how uncomfortable I feel about the picture and how sorry I felt for her. She told me calmly that she posted those on her Facebook way back. I was totally shocked when I heard that. And I couldn't help but expressing how unbelievable and weird the action seemed to me. Then she looked even more confused and she started to express her disappointment in my reaction. I wasn't fully understand the level of her disappointment, so I just said I didn't really mean most of the things I said. Still I can't hide the discomfort I felt. And I thought she shouldn't be upset after I tried to downplay the whole thing because from what I see, all that matters is that she doesn't look like that anymore.

Then on the way we drove back to campus, she brought this up and that's when I know how this is for her, and how insensitive I was and how distorted my belief was. I felt sorry for her as a kid suffering cleft palate and felt uncomfortable to talk about it because I thought she herself should feel embarrassed by that experience. My asking her to get rid of the picture seriously hurt her feelings because I didn't understand what that means to her and I was literally rejecting the person she was. For me, I believed that people all want the bitter part of their past to be forgotten and only the sparkling part be seen by others.Why? Because I thought people feel ashamed of their misfortune at some point and feel insecure if others know their struggle back then. And it's so much easier to be perceived and accepted as "normal". However what is normal. My favorite roomie, she feels proud of where she came from. Thus,she will never want to erase anything from her past that makes her who she is today. Later instead of feeling awkward, I feel so proud of her and glad that we had this conversation. It showed me how bad I misunderstood her. Even though I still had to stretch my own feelings a bit to look at that picture of her, but I see more than I saw before. It's definitely a belief changing moment. I'm grateful for that.

Yi Xie