I am a pretty
average girl. My body, according to my doctor, is "perfectly
proportioned." I am not too thin or too chunky. I am a little bit on the
short side but I'm perfectly okay with that. I have nice hair and fairly pretty
eyes. To me, I am okay. I'm no showstopper. I am no Victoria's Secret model. I
am okay.
I grew up in today's
society, where I was constantly told, from a young age, to make adjustments to
my appearance. Beginning in the 2nd grade, my mother set my hair in rag curlers
every night in an attempt to tame my frizzy, wild, not really curly but definitely
not straight, mane. Contacts came along in the seventh grade, along with the
new found necessity to wax my eyebrows. When puberty hit, at the ripe age of 11,
I was immediately whisked to the dermatologist to determine how to best tackle
to constant barrage of pimples taking up residency on my face. At a critical
time in adolescent development, where a young girl's self-esteem is as fragile
as a butterfly's wings, I found myself on a constant search for ways to improve
myself. Workout routines, skincare suggestions, crazy home remedies, teeth
whitening treatments, you name it, I was looking into it. Rather than realize
that I had simply inherited my frizzy hair and oily skin from those who brought
me into this world, I looked for factors within my own life that were causing
these things. I scrutinized myself and my lifestyles on the daily and brought
blame onto myself whenever and however often I could.
About a year ago, I
was doing a deep cleaning of my room when I came across a calendar from my
younger years. As I flipped through the pages and looked back at what had been
consuming my time, I noticed a constant stream of numbers riddled across the
days. "96. 98. 102. 99." Amazed and horrified, I cringed as I
remembered what these numbers were. My weight. 11 year old, extremely
self-conscious me had weighed myself multiple times a week, for an entire
summer. Tears filled my eyes as I realized the torture that I had put myself
through. Why had I been like that? Why did I hate myself so much that I
obsessed over the slightest fluctuation in my body and scrutinized every inch
of me with such intensity?
Fast forward from
that fragile 11 year old to sophomore in college me. I have accepted my frizzy,
kind of curly, depends on the weather hair. I have even grown to kind of love
it. I am still concerned about my skin and try to keep it as clear as I possibly
can. I had gone through a multitude of changes in those 9 years, the largest
being my diagnosis of type 1 diabetes at the age of 16. I now had to worry
about how to hide my insulin pump. How to disguise the bruises that appear on
my arms and legs after my multiple injections every day. I was at the most I
had ever weighed, a whopping 120 pounds, and was about to embark on a new
adventure as a Resident Assistant at my university. I was still extremely
self-conscious and still did not love the way I looked.
Then, something
happened. A boy. A boy with perfectly shaped pink lips and beautiful blue eyes.
A boy who teased me about my sinus infection while simultaneously being in awe
of my handling of my diabetes. A boy fell in love. With me.
And as my love story
with this boy grew, something else changed too. I began to see myself in the
way that he saw me. The boy who loved my bright blue eyes. The boy who thought
my smile was the most beautiful thing in the world. The boy who said mine was
the most perfect body he had ever seen. I didn't believe him at first. I argued
with him about it. I pointed out countless other girls who had prettier hair,
or more perfect skin. Who were skinnier, tanner, had longer legs and more toned
abs. I magnified my flaws for him. I tried and tried to make him see me the way
I saw myself. But it never worked.
So, I tried a new
tactic. I tried to see myself the way he saw me. I began to look at myself from
his perspective. I looked back at pictures and saw the way that my eyes lit up
when I laughed. I noticed how nice my legs looked in a particular pair of shorts.
I saw the joy and love in my heart radiate out of me. It was amazing. I saw
myself the way he saw me. And just like that, I grew to love myself.
I still suffer from
some not so great self-esteem at times. I still stress about a breakout and get
frustrated when my hair is not cooperating. I still feel fat some days and hate
the way I look in all of my clothes. But then, I look back at our pictures
together. I look at the images from the times I felt the prettiest and I
remember that feeling and I am instantly transformed into a happier mood. Even
just the other night, I sent my boyfriend a selfie but covered half of my face.
When he responded with, "you are so pretty," I lost it. I pointed out
the fact that my hair was frizzy as all hell and I had purposely hidden the
bottom half of my face due to the fact that a giant, hormonal pimple had
decided to set up camp on my chin. His response put me near tears. "I
think you are so beautiful and you have absolutely no idea. I get lost in your
eyes and I see you for who you truly are."
I know they say you
are supposed to learn to love yourself before you can love another, but I
disagree. Sometimes, it takes another one we love to teach us to love
ourselves. It takes the eyes of someone we care about, the opinion of someone
we trust the most in the world, to help us get past our flaws and see our
beauty the way they see us. At least that was the case for me. I had to start
seeing myself through the eyes of my boyfriend, my best friend, my number one
fan, and my biggest supporter, in order to recognize the beauty that had been
masked to me by my own harsh criticisms.
I love myself, most
of the time. I see have those moments of self-doubt and self-criticism, but I
do love myself. I love myself because I
know that, despite all of the flaws I see, I am perfect in someone else's eyes.
