Perfection

Let’s paint a picture. You’re in a room, pick your favorite color for the walls (mine’s blue, so the room is a light baby blue shade), in front of you is a large floor-length mirror, and no one else is in the room except for you and your reflection.
What do you see? Do you see a girl who had wide eyes? Someone with long hair? Someone with blue eyes, or maybe brown? Do you see someone who has hopes, dreams, and goals for a better future?

For a long time, I didn’t know what I saw. Most of the time, if I caught a glance of myself in the mirror I would look away as soon as possible. I would hate the face that was staring back at me, silently judging me. I would hate the way my top lip was thinner in proportion to my lower lip. I would hate how my eyes weren’t a slightly lighter shade of brown. I would absolutely hate my reflection. I would see myself and only see all of my imperfections, everything that made me different from the girl sitting next to me in class, the girl on the television, or even the girl on the magazine. I wanted to look like her. I wanted to have a perfect smile, amazing light eyes, perfect skin, and the “perfect” body. (which all in itself is dangerous)
There are some things I am ashamed to admit, but I would binge, and binge a lot. Whenever I thought I looked a bit too heavy, I would lower my intake of food. Whether that was by not eating another slice of pizza, not drinking anything but water, skipping lunch to do homework instead, and sometimes ignoring the fact that my stomach was screaming. [No, I am not promoting this, I just am simply letting a side of myself out that has only been whispers before]
Now the question is, why did I do that? Why did I let myself get to that point? Well, here’s the thing, I never had any control over my life. I never was able to say, “This is going the way it is, because it’s the way that I want and not because everyone else is making it happen this way.” I had control over two things, my grades, and my weight, so I took complete advantage of that.

Coming from someone who experienced this, I know how dangerous it is. I never let it get drastic enough for anyone to really notice to cause too much attention to myself, but it was still there eating at me. I would skip meals, I would avoid eating with everyone else, and I would even grab the smaller dishes just so that it didn’t seem like I wasn’t eating at all.

What many people don’t realize is that there is so much pressure put into every single human being today. You have certain expectations to meet out in society. You have to no matter what, be educated to get a good career. Drive a good car. Not complain or else you are known the the whiny friend. And sure, we’re finally getting a little bit of freedom for the way that we look, but it’s only to an extent. People will still judge you no matter what.

And I guess the lesson here is to just stop caring and stop worrying about what other people think of you. Stop comparing yourself to the girl or guy you sit next to in class. Stop trying to want to please everyone else and care about yourself for a change. Be happy in your own skin and (as cheesy as it sounds) celebrate that you are the only YOU there will ever be. No one else in the world can be exactly you.

Once everyone stops caring about what other people think, that’s when we’ll start seeing more people accepting all of their beautiful “imperfections”; the crooked smile, the dark brown eyes, the funny way you laugh, the way you look. We need to eventually get to that state of finding peace with ourselves and letting go of all the negativity. Be your own beauty.

I still have to find that peace within myself, but I’m at least attempting to make a change. I’m attempting to get out of this seemingly never ending rut.