One Day I’ll Believe I’m Pretty

One Day I’ll Believe I’m Pretty

Me at my best friend’s wedding, September of 2024

I often think about how much mental energy I waste every single day of my life worrying about my appearance. Is my hair styled well enough for me to step outside? Does my skin appear clear enough so that I look healthy and glowing even when I’m sick as a dog? Is my outfit flattering to my body shape without looking like I’m trying too hard? Does my posture make me look confident but not cocky? Not just every day, but every minute feels like a performance. 

Where would I be now if I had never expended all of that energy that could have been put towards studying, learning new skills, exercising for functionality, and not appearance? How much stronger would I be? How much smarter? Wealthier? Happier?

For a few short years in my early life, I didn’t think about my appearance. I was just a child worried about childhood things. I only cared about playing outside, watching my favorite movies, reading books, and getting stickers in school for good behavior. But despite those innocent beginnings, I was just nine years old when I first convinced myself that I was ugly.

I remember leading up to that I overheard many comments from important men and women in my life judging other women’s bodies.

“She should really put on some Spanx, her pudge doesn’t look good in that dress.”

“Why does she bother dyeing her hair blonde if she’s not going to keep those roots covered?”

“She should wear swim shorts, her cellulite looks awful, like cottage cheese.”

“I can’t believe she’s not wearing a bra in public, that’s disgusting.”

“She really let herself go with that last pregnancy, I never gained more than 20 pounds with each of my kids.”

“Her acne is really out of control. She clearly doesn’t wash her face, it’s disgusting.”

“I’ve never seen her without a ton of makeup on, she must be a real butterface without it.”

“She’d be a lot hotter if she didn’t have mosquito bites for tits.”

I was an incredibly quiet kid and internalized every single one of these comments. I remember feeling bad for all of these women because I knew it would hurt their feelings if they overheard. I worried people would say things like that about me. I was worried that people would say things like that about my friends. As a little girl, I felt it was wrong, but it was my own parents saying these things, my neighbors, my aunts and uncles, babysitters, and teachers. These were the people I looked up to the most. If they were saying them, they had to be true.

Me at age 11 performing a tap dance routine

So I took their commentary to heart and started acting accordingly. I was the scrawniest girl in my dance class, but when it came time for the teacher to take our measurements for costumes, I sucked in my stomach and then just never really stopped. I remember talking to my friend Kacey at recess about how I was five pounds heavier, but it was okay because I was still under sixty pounds as a fourth grader. I had to start wearing glasses before age 10 and my neighbor, a fully grown man in his 30s, told me that eventually I could start wearing contact lenses and that I’d be a lot prettier then. And in that moment, I started to hate the glasses that I thought were cool just a few minutes before.

As one could imagine, the insecurities just continued to grow and get stronger. By the time I was 11, I had turned my diary into a logbook for all of my insecurities. More than once I went home after school and would draw full-body pictures of myself and make diagrams pointing out everything I hated about myself. My acne, my crooked teeth, my glasses, my big nose, my flat hair, my flat chest. Going through puberty as a literal child and actually looking like I was going through that puberty cycle, felt like a moral failing to me. 

And becoming a teenager meant that I started pushing myself to exercise for the sake of a thigh gap, rather than being strong. It meant wearing concealer to hide the acne that came no matter how much I washed my skin. And it meant sucking in my stomach the day I graduated high school and my parents wanted to take pictures of me in my pretty blue dress. To me, at the end of the day, it wasn’t enough that I graduated with honors, I still had to make sure that I looked skinny.

This cycle never really ended. I never stopped caring too much, I just gained more responsibilities as an adult and had less time to focus on these insecurities, but the weight of them never left. 

I’m nearly thirty years old now, and I wish I could say I’ve overcome these issues. I’m happy to say that I have when it comes to other people. I see beauty everywhere and know it comes in all shapes and sizes. I love to tell people how beautiful, smart, and important they are. Making others feel good about themselves is one of my favorite parts of being alive, even if I still struggle to accept and acknowledge that belief system towards myself. 

But despite that struggle, I know that putting more energy into lifting up the women around me, helping little girls understand that beauty does not equate to worth, and pushing my friends to be their own advocates is still a much better use of my time than wallowing in self-pity. 

Even if I can’t show up for myself, I will happily and loudly show up for others. As of now, I can’t exactly say that I’m winning the battle of self-worth, but at the very least, I know that I’m too stubborn to give up. I will keep trying to do better for myself and hopefully one day I can say that I truly love myself.