That Greasy Bean

Readers, I have been thinking a lot lately.  About who I am, who I used to be, it's been exhausting, but interesting.

I was thinking back to being an awkward preteen.  I felt like the ugliest girl in the world, or at very least, in my school.  I was covered in pimples, and hopelessly trying to cover them up with way too much makeup, no blush, and hardly any mascara.  I looked like a ghost with greasy hair and terrible teeth.  My boobs hadn't quite come in so I was just weird shaped.  I was like a chubby bean in weird clothes.

Despite my efforts to be funny and friendly (since ugly girls shouldn't be mean), I was a mess inside.  I didn't feel like I was worth anything.  That year I also got my first pair of glasses, and I went from being an invisible dowdy girl to being the dowdy girl with glasses.  I became noticed.  Which in my mind, made everything worse.  I had good friends who cared about me, and I felt lucky, but I always felt like the ugliest girl in the room.  I had one boy that occasionally flirted with me, which always made my whole day, if not my whole week.

I dreamed of growing up, my skin clearing up, finally stop looking like a bean, and figure out the whole makeup thing.  A girl can dream right?

Well, I got a little older, my small C's turned into DD's, and after some serious time with a mirror and makeup over one summer, I finally figured out what color my face was supposed to look like.  However, in my head I was still that greasy bean.

Then my grandmother moved in with us when I was 16.  She told me time and time again how no one was ever going to love me because I was so ugly and so fat.  This went on for over a year, almost every day.  That really takes its toll when you are just starting to date.  How can you get excited about a whole new world of activities you never had the opportunity to explore before when you are told almost daily that you are worth nothing?

Well, fast forward a few more years, I started going to college, and slowly I started gaining a little more confidence.  But I still kept feeling like that greasy bean.

I'm staring my 26th birthday in the face now, and I can happily say my grandmother was totally wrong about me.

I have the love of such an amazing man that my greasy bean days have grown fewer and further between.  I can look in the mirror with no makeup on and feel OK about the way I look.  Not great, not "damn I am one hot chick," but I am slowly getting there, and I hope by the time I have a daughter I can feel that good about myself.  I want to love myself as much as Sky loves me, and I want to teach my daughter and/or nieces that they are beautiful no matter what they look like.  I don't want any girl who I have any influence over to ever feel like they are less than they are.

I grew up spending a lot of time wishing that I looked different.  I would spend countless minutes staring in the mirror thinking about how much happier I would be if I was actually one of the pretty girls.  I don't want that for anyone else.  Life is too short to spend time hating yourself because you don't look exactly right.

Readers, take a minute to love yourselves today.  Do something nice for yourselves.  You earned it.

Keep it real readers.