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| There it is: MAGNUM! (That's a Zoolander quote. If you haven't seen that movie please stop what you're doing and go watch it immediately.) |
I am the perfect candidate for low self-esteem.
In fact, if I was handed a checklist called Stuff That Happened To
You A Long Time Ago That Can Cause Self-Esteem Issues, that bad boy would have so many X's it would need a second job to cover alimony payments. I am, quite honestly, a poster child for some serious self-hate.
Oh, and did I mention I'm fat? Actually
fat, not just "I think I'm fat" fat. And it's the kind of stubborn
fat that would require me to inject myself with lettuce sweat and eat twigs
to shed.
With my shaky backstory and a
society that hates on big girls, I spent entirely too long feeling quite badly
about the way I look. Oh, I felt badly about other things, like
how I never finished high school and how some days I can't seem to parent my
way out of a paper bag. But mostly my weight and my insert-random-body-parts-to-pick-apart-here were put on trial
every single day, year after tiring year.
But this isn't a post about me hating on myself.
This is about that time I stopped waiting to be beautiful.
And just decided I was beautiful.
On a day of no particular significance, I got tired of feeling ugly. I got tired of trying to be a single-digit size with long legs and a specific set of graceful features. I got tired of constantly being compared to a narrow set of guidelines I would never meet. I will not be that model or actress or pop star, ever.
On a day of no particular significance, I got tired of feeling ugly. I got tired of trying to be a single-digit size with long legs and a specific set of graceful features. I got tired of constantly being compared to a narrow set of guidelines I would never meet. I will not be that model or actress or pop star, ever.
I decided I simply had to be a beautiful human being. That was the easy part. Then I had to figure out what that actually meant. That was the hard part. (If I had known there was a hard part I might have just said "screw it. Pass the Costco bag of M&Ms" and been done with it.) I write a lot about that here and here.
What I discovered is that beauty - true beauty - comes from the inside and works
its way out. It's excavated, raised and delicately polished until it shines.
Beauty is about attitude and confidence, kindness and love. (For example, if you're currently thinking "Whatever, Maven. That's what ugly people tell themselves so they can feel better" then you are shallow and you need to keep digging. But do enjoy those great legs of yours.)
Beauty is about realizing that everyone is beautiful, including me.
Beauty is about a life lived, not wasted away wishing I was someone else. I'm not someone else. I'm not ever going to look like or be someone else. No matter what I do, no matter what changes I make, I will always be her, and if I don't find her beautiful at every stage of life, how can I be ok with that? How will I live fully if I'm always hiding from myself?
Beauty is about attitude and confidence, kindness and love. (For example, if you're currently thinking "Whatever, Maven. That's what ugly people tell themselves so they can feel better" then you are shallow and you need to keep digging. But do enjoy those great legs of yours.)
Beauty is about realizing that everyone is beautiful, including me.
Beauty is about a life lived, not wasted away wishing I was someone else. I'm not someone else. I'm not ever going to look like or be someone else. No matter what I do, no matter what changes I make, I will always be her, and if I don't find her beautiful at every stage of life, how can I be ok with that? How will I live fully if I'm always hiding from myself?
Self-esteem makes the beauty inside me shine. Unfortunately,
confidence can be a bitch. It can be about as as fickle as the weather, and there are occasional days
when the clouds are so thick it seems like no light can get through. Those are the days
when the negativity creeps in, when I compare myself to girls half my
age with hips half my size. Those are the days when I study each wrinkle or frown at each unruly curl. Nothing I wear or apply helps me feel any better. I want to avoid the mirror and I want to eat all the comfort things. Thankfully, those days are also extremely rare, and generally only happen a day or two before my period.
Some would think I post these in hopes of getting a positive reaction. That's a fair assumption on account of me being the mega-super-skank of attention whoring. I do enjoy the comments and the likes; I'm only human, after all. I'm glad you appreciate them and/or hope you'll make it into my will by telling me I look good. (Smart move, by the way. Being a mediocre writer, I'm bound to be very wealthy by the time I die.)
These a couple of my social media profile pictures.
I, um, take a lot of pictures.
Like, a lot. Of myself. And I switch them up fairly regularly. (I'm not a narcissist, but I play a good one on the internet.)
However, the big secret that is no longer going to be a big secret because I'm sharing it on the interwebs is that these pictures are not for you. They're for me to remind myself of who I am on the days when reality has checked out of the hotel and Emo Maven has checked in. They remind me that I am beautiful, even though I'm not a perfect 10. That reminder can do wonders for me.
I had a lot of this post mapped out in my head for the last few days, but I've been struggling with some writer's block and couldn't quite get the words out. A friend posted this on Facebook this morning and it perfectly summarized what I was trying to say:
I high-fived my screen (an awkward moment) and squealed like a four-year-old at a teddybear factory. That's it exactly. Gabourey is a mighty girl of awesome. She also takes a mean picture, meaning we have a lot in common.
The thing is, we live in a world full of marketing designed to make us feel like we're not good enough as we are. This crafty system tells us we need to buy into a multi-billion dollar industry to have any hope of being happy and confident. Well, this overweight and imperfect girl says fuck marketing and fuck the system. Seriously.
It appears we have been lied to. Beauty has been inside of us the whole time. Can you believe that? The only thing we have to do is realize it's there.
I had a lot of this post mapped out in my head for the last few days, but I've been struggling with some writer's block and couldn't quite get the words out. A friend posted this on Facebook this morning and it perfectly summarized what I was trying to say:
I high-fived my screen (an awkward moment) and squealed like a four-year-old at a teddybear factory. That's it exactly. Gabourey is a mighty girl of awesome. She also takes a mean picture, meaning we have a lot in common.
The thing is, we live in a world full of marketing designed to make us feel like we're not good enough as we are. This crafty system tells us we need to buy into a multi-billion dollar industry to have any hope of being happy and confident. Well, this overweight and imperfect girl says fuck marketing and fuck the system. Seriously.
It appears we have been lied to. Beauty has been inside of us the whole time. Can you believe that? The only thing we have to do is realize it's there.