It was the day before today
Not yesterday because yesterdays are to close
but the day before today
a lifetime ago
When my whole body would shake
at the thought of losing you
like a leaf about to turn brown and drop
I didn’t know that the end could be so beautiful.
-CM
Sixth grade English class, first day of school. I wore a purple t-shirt with two penguins printed on the chest I had so enthusiastically asked my mom for whilst school shopping. I liked penguins. The teacher told me to cover up because I was attracting too much attention. Later in private elaborating that too many of my male classmates were looking at the black and white birds displayed on my top.
This is the first time I was treated like an object to be molded rather than a human being.
My dear mother taught my sisters and I that fitting into a box was for woman too shy to be themselves. She taught us to wear the bright colors, to choose the mix matched socks, to buy daisy duke shorts and crop tops and strut them like we were made to be worshiped. My mother taught me to own my body.
Sophomore year of High School, last day of school. I was dressed in all black, walking to my waitressing job fifteen minutes from school when a middle aged man across the street whistled at me and called me sexy. When I angrily told my coworker, he told me I was asking for it. My barely developed teen body shivered as my cloths were suddenly too tight, wishing I had a blanket to wrap myself in to protect me from his stare.
We live in a world where short skirts and tight tops are seen as provocative while cat calls and labels are portrayed as normal.
Senior year, another day at work. A costumer walks in. I will never forget the red of her lips, the way her hair curled back from her face, the form of her body hugged in a black dress. The click of her heels as she approached the counter as if she was made to be there. She spoke the English language in a way that suggested it had been written all for her. When she left, the air was stale.
I promised myself that one day, I would own the room exactly the way that woman did.
Since the moment we learn to talk we woman are surrounded by voices telling us that we are not good enough. Our bodies are not thin enough. Our hair is not straight enough. Our clothes do not cover enough. Or our clothes cover too much. From the second we learn to walk we are groomed into perfect little misses, ushered into cages, taught that if we do not fit into a certain box we will not fit in anywhere.
My sixth grade teacher was a lady. Unknowingly, with only a quick instruction, she set a wheel in motion I was afraid would never stop rolling.
2019, 22 years old. I am still trying to unlearn what the world has forced down my throat since childhood by spoon feeding myself the teachings of a very wise woman. My mother. Her silent example the reason for my loud mouth and overflowing opinions.
Not every woman is lucky enough to have a mother as loud and colorful as mine. So many women are ushered into the darkness, into baggy clothes and fake smiles, believing this is the world they were meant to live in. These women sadly never get to learn what it means to exist freely in their bodies. So many women convinced there is nothing more to this life than the mold they were forced into.
I am here to help you become the woman you might have never known you even had the power to be. Wear the clothes you want. Weather those be the tight jeans and crop tops or the baggy dresses and sweaters. Cut your hair the way you want. Tell everyone exactly what you think. Open your mouth when people tell you to stay quiet.
Own every room you walk into, because this world is yours for the taking.
I remember going to Plato’s Closet with my sister, four years younger than me, after I’d put on about twenty pounds, and feeling so discouraged because I felt my body no longer looked good in the styles I used to love. I picked through the racks and grabbed off items I would have worn a year ago and handed them to my sister, telling her how beautiful she looked in them as she tried them on and questioned whether her hips looked too big or if this bunch of fat peaked out too much. I remember wishing I had the body back that I had so desperately tried to change.
A week later I was standing in front of a full length mirror at work in a baggy t-shirt and leggings, picking at my stomach and I said to my co-worker, “I have gotten so fat.” She looked at me with a look of complete surprise on her face and said “Where?” Like she couldn’t believe I think that of myself. Like those weren’t thoughts that cycled through my brain about every five minutes.
When I got home that night I took a long look in the mirror at my body and I wondered where I had gone wrong. I didn’t hate the way my body looked. Sure, there was a bit more to my stomach and my thighs pressed together a bit tighter, but I still thought I was beautiful. So why was I feeling so down about my own body?
Theodore Roosevelt once said “Comparison is the thief of Joy,” and while I doubt he was talking about our bodies, the same principal applies. Comparing your body to another body – whether that be a friends, an Instagram Models, a Celebrities, or even your own a year ago – will do nothing but make you feel bad about yourself.
I am the biggest now that I have ever been. I work out and I eat healthy. I am healthy. Yet, I am still the biggest I have ever been and that is okay. Could I be doing more to make my body smaller? Sure. But would that make me happier? Probably not.
According to a quick Google search, the average weight of a woman over 20 is 170 pounds. My heaviest weight puts me slightly above the average, yet woman who look just like me call themselves fat and ugly every single day.
Stop comparing yourself to anybody. Look in your mirror and love your body at whatever size and shape it is right now. If you know you are healthy, you know you are doing the best that you can in this body right now, than that is enough. You can still want smaller arms. You can still want to see a smaller number on the scale. You are still allowed to think the girl five sizes smaller or bigger than you is beautiful. But also know you are beautiful. Know your arms at this size are beautiful. Know your body at this weight is beautiful.
I’ll leave you with a selfie taken this morning at my heaviest weight. I am posing to make myself feel good. I am posing to extenuate the body parts I feel most confident in. I promise my stomach jiggles when I walk and my thighs rub together with each step. Notice that face? She’s happy in this body right now. Join her.
Yesterday I woke up with some different kind of pep in my step. I looked in the mirror, bed head and bags under my eyes, and I felt like a Queen. I picked out the only push up bra I own, my tightest pair of jeans, and I completely made up my face with gold eye shadow and red lipstick, all while jamming out to Cardi B. Mind you, I work at a group home, so this level of getting ready was completely unnecessary. But I also knew I needed to take advantage of this feeling. I texted a good friend of mine and said ‘ever just wake up really feeling yourself, cus same’, and she replied, ‘feel it, feel all of it’. I was reminded in that moment that we are allowed to have good days and we are allowed to have bad days, and we should completely revel in and feel both.
Reminded again when I woke up this morning bloated, feeling sluggish and greasy. I looked in the mirror and although it was the same girl looking back at me from only twenty four hours before, I didn’t feel the same. Cardi B wasn’t getting me hyped. My hair wouldn’t stay styled the way I wanted it to, and I had no energy to apply more than just mascara, and even that was a struggle. I didn’t want to wear jeans – so instead I pulled on leggings and a baggy shirt because that’s what I felt comfortable in today. Old me would have slumped her way to work, dreading it every step of the way and feeling like a hideous monster who shouldn’t have been let out of the house.
Instead, I thought about yesterday. I thought about how I felt when I looked at myself, how it was me looking back, and how good that had felt. And I did the same thing I had done then. I allowed myself to feel ugly. I allowed myself to feel broken and gross. And then I moved on.
You are not going to feel your best every day. No matter how many times you go to the gym, no matter how healthy you eat, how many self help books you read, how many times you meditate, you are never going to feel today the same way you feel tomorrow. That’s beautiful, and something we should take more time to fall in love with, instead of being angry about. It’s easy to wake up today and feel terrible about yourself and try to change it. That’s what I used to do, and would spend my entire day miserable because even though I was looking at the same girl who felt great about herself the day before, I couldn’t bring myself to feel that same way today.
Don’t try to change how you feel, thinking that might make you happier. You are feeling how you are feeling for a reason. Feel it. Live with it. And then let it go. Acknowledging that you are feeling this way about yourself gives the power back to you – a strategy that can be used on so much more than just how you feel about your looks.
If you feel good about yourself today, own in. If you feel bad about yourself today, own it. Just know either way, tomorrow you are going to feel completely different than you do right now.
Our tiny family here is growing! Hopping on here this morning and realizing we had hit 120 followers, I decided it was time to make a post about what I am doing here. I know 120 isn’t much in social media terms, but for me, a small town blogger who never thought she would get over 5 followers, that number makes my heart happy.
My blog has been a bit all over the place as of late. And this is because I started this blog purely because I love to write. I love to write but sometimes I don’t feel like adding to my novel or scribbling down a short story. Sometimes I have a thought my brain needs to get on paper – this blog was my solution for that. A place to write down my little ideas in hopes that maybe a couple of people might read them and agree, or perhaps feel a little less alone in this vast world, as I myself have when reading blogs written by others.
Over the past few months of adding posts here however, I have found a common theme in my ideas, and thus, in my writing. I am very passionate about self love, mental health, and supporting other woman. I always have been. Since my own very first struggle with depression as a Freshman in High School, to my now 22 year old self, I have thought mental health was a topic not many people feel comfortable enough to contribute to. Most of us struggle with loving ourselves, with depression, or some other form of mental illness, but many of us don’t think it is our place to share our opinions.
That is what I am here to do. Since before High School, since a little girl in middle school bullied by the more popular girls, the girls I always dreamed of being but who seemed to hate me, I have known I was put on this earth for something larger. I knew that all of this pain and suffering had to add up to something.
I don’t care how many people this blog reaches. I don’t care if I get zero reads a day, two reads a day, or ten. I really do not care. Because I am writing this for myself, and the one lonely girl behind her screen who feels no one gets her. I get you.
I am not promising that from here on out each post will make perfect sense and will fill you with some sort of purpose for your day. I am promising that I am here as your big sister, as your friend, as your cheerleader. And I plan on continuing to shower each and every one of you with the love that you deserve.
Thank you for reading my little update and I hope you all have a wonderful day!
Two questions for you today – have you ever looked at someone and wished you could be like them? And – who do you see when you look in the mirror?
Stay with me here.
We have all been the person a stranger wanted to be.
Read that again. And again. Now let it sink in. Believe me.
I am willing to bet you have looked in the mirror and saw a person you never thought you’d see staring back at you. Maybe you thought you’d be stronger, skinnier, healthier, smarter – maybe all of these things. I am willing to bet you have looked at that reflection and hated every single thing you saw. To say this is normal is sad, but it’s a reality. We can never be perfect. You will always see more flaws in yourself than anyone else will ever see in you.
Now, the tougher one. We all know the girl in the coffee shop who’s wearing the black pants void of cat hairs and perfectly pressed. Her top is tucked into her pants, it isn’t causing any lumps or bumps on her hips. Her bottoms aren’t rising up causing the dreaded camel toe. Her top is showing just the right amount of cleavage. She’s staring at the menu above the barista’s head, probably reading, considering what she’ll order today, and in the moment, you would give anything to be her. You glance down at yourself and see your jeans that should have been washed two wears ago and you’re shirt wrinkled from being in the hamper half an hour before – the sniff test deemed it okay to wear one more time. You look at yourself and you are disgusted. Why can’t you be more like the girl in the black pants with the perfectly clean hair, gorgeous face contemplating the menu like it’s a work of art?
What you didn’t see though, as you looked down at the body you have labeled as ‘gross’ and ‘unworthy’, was the Goddess before you running her eyes over your body, wishing with every ounce of her soul that she could be more like you. She woke up two hours early to wash her favorite pair of pants. She tried on five different shirts before deciding on this one, all of the others showing too many rolls. She stood in front of the mirror for an hour applying and reapplying her makeup until it was perfect. She cried for ten minutes over her eyeliner wing not being just right. And now she’s standing here staring at the menu with an anxiety bubble forming in her chest, hoping she doesn’t start crying while telling the barista she would like a small latte. She looks over at you as you glance down at your own body, and she wishes she didn’t care what people thought. She wishes she could look as effortless as you, as beautiful as you do.
But you both look up and go on with your day without ever knowing that you were that stranger. Without knowing that you are perfect just the way you are.
Let’s revisit my second question, but let’s revise it a bit this time. Who are you going to see tomorrow when you look in the mirror? You see, who we are is all about perspective. You can choose to see the bags under your eyes and see the hours of sleep you didn’t get showing on your face, or you can see the nights you stayed up laying with your boyfriend or cuddling your baby. You can see the way your clothes fit too tight and beat yourself up about the weight you’ve gained, or you can think about how much better your a** looks, about how full your tummy feels, about how good the food tasted.
It’s not easy. Change never is. But next time you look in the mirror, try seeing yourself as a stranger. If you saw you on the streets, what would you think. Because I promise, some girl has wished she was you while you would have given anything to be her.
This post was inspired by a real interaction I had with a former co-worker. The story was too long to share in this post, and storytelling isn’t my normal content, so I decided not to include it. But if you’d like to hear the story, please let me know in the comments!
You are perfect just the way you are. I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but if you do, please keep reading. Wipe your face. I see those tears, tears for a person you think you’ll never be, tears for a person you once were – I want you to look in a mirror. Wipe your face and take a good long look – who do you see? On a good day, you might say you see a girl with brown hair and green eyes, a girl with a smile and too many freckles. Today though, you tell me you see defeat. You see a girl who has tried so hard and just doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. I will tell you now to look again.
What I see is a girl who has never given up. I see a radiance that is only born through being knocked down over and over and standing up every single time slightly taller. I see a smile that has seen shadows, yet still steps into the light and allows the sun to shine on it. I see a spirit that has been nearly broken, yet is still chugging along each day. I see a girl who is enough.
If you look in the mirror today and this is not what you see, please just take a seat and listen to me. You don’t have to feel perfect every single day. You don’t even have to feel okay every single day. All that I ask is that you remember you are enough. Remember that when people look at you, they see a completely different person than you are currently seeing in the mirror. Remember that I believe in you. You can do the hard thing. You can take this life by the horns and you can live it in a unique way that only you can. And if you don’t see that today, that’s okay.
Look in the mirror again tomorrow, and maybe then you’ll see it. If not, read this again. You are perfect just the way you are.
Opening up Facebook this morning – this generations version of the morning paper – the first post I scrawled across: How To Be A Good Woman. Curious as to what tips this random stranger might have for me and what ‘being a good woman’ actually looks like, I opened the article and felt my jaw drop more and more the farther down I scrolled. Tip One was basically a lesson plan on how to impress the man in your life. Tip Two was all about putting your children first. And the article continued, painting a picture of what society evidently views as a good woman: Beautiful, intelligent, put together, focused, putting others first, ect.
I felt like I was watching one of those movies where the popular girls transform the class nerd into a beautiful princess by taking off her glasses and letting down her hair. As I always wondered when watching these movies, I began to wonder now: What was wrong with her before? Society has us convinced that to be a good woman we have to look and act the right way. We have to say the right things and wear the right clothes. Our hair has to be perfectly styled. We have to be amazing mom’s every second and great friends at every chance we get. We have to be perfect. Every minute of every day.
I say to hell with that theory.
Being a good woman starts with remembering yourself. It starts with wearing the clothes that make you comfortable and doing the things that make you happy. Being a good woman has nothing to do with how you treat others, and everything to do with how you treat yourself. Now, don’t get me wrong here. I’m not saying to treat everyone around you like scum and think you can get away with it. I’m saying that the one person we all spend the most time with is ourselves; shouldn’t we be our biggest priority?
Remember yourself when you go the grocery store. Buy the box of donuts you’ve been eyeing for days. Remember yourself at night after you’ve tucked the kids in. Take a hot bath or read a good book or do both. Remember yourself when that guy asks you to come over. Think about if you really want to or if you’re just trying to impress him. Remember yourself when your best friend asks you out for coffee before you say yes. Do you really want to meet her, or would you rather take the few spare minutes you have in your day for a little me time?
A good woman isn’t perfect. She is flawed. She is struggling. But she is trying. A good woman makes steps every day to be the best version of herself. And some days she takes two steps backwards instead of one step forward. But that’s okay. A good woman gets up and tries again tomorrow anyway.
Here’s to all the great woman out there – forget society and remember yourself. You are perfect just the way you are (cliche for a reason).
If I were to take a pole, I’m ninety percent sure rainy days would be the least favorite kind of days for seventy five percent of people –
statistics I made up but could be true because
rain makes people sad.
When the clouds pull over the blue sky and water begins falling,
suddenly people are reminded of the day their lives began to fall apart.
It’s as if the sky is crying.
She is sobbing her loneliness into the soil but first her sadness hits our shoulders
and even if we aren’t outside to feel the drops, we still soak a little of it into our souls.
Our insides wilt just a little even as the flowers outside stand a little straighter
our branches bend against the wind
and that is the beauty of rainy days –
For those that fall in the fifteen percent of made up people that love the rain
there is something about the sound the drops make when they hit the ground
that remind us that we aren’t alone.
When the clouds begin to cover the sky my soul starts to shift
and my body begins to wake up.
Dancing in the rain is on the top of my favorite things to do list
and I think it’s sad how many people miss out on it’s beauty because
they are afraid of messing up their hair and drenching their clothes.
Hair can be brushed, clothes can be dried
but how many chances are you going to get to live this day again –
this moment, this life.
The next time it rains or pours or sprinkles
please step outside if only for a fraction of a second and instead of dreading
the feeling of the water hitting your skin
let it remind you that while the sun is beautiful and warmth is brilliant
rain has the pour to awaken even the most hopeless of hearts
and that’s pretty special.
-CM
I am an introvert. The dictionary definition describes us as “a person predominantly concerned with their own thoughts and feelings rather than with external things”, as opposed to the dictionary definition of an extrovert being – “a person predominantly concerned with external things or objective considerations”. These are the psychological definitions, while simplified labels are shy versus outgoing. While no one can be boxed completely into either category, we all lean more heavily into one state of being. For me, I have always enjoyed the quiet of being alone with my thoughts, rather than abundant conversations and other activities that require me to socialize.
There is always an exception to this rule. Of course, I enjoy hanging out with my family and friends, and if you were to see me around my family, best friend or boyfriend, you would have no idea that I am normally very quiet and closed off.
While the dictionary would label me as “shy”, this isn’t a term I connect with. I choose to keep to myself not because I am nervous or timid, but simply because that is what feels right to me. Sure, I have a history with social anxiety, but this keeps me from leaving my house – not from speaking when I actually do. I have no problem expressing my opinion if I am angry or irritated, or overjoyed even. I just don’t feel the need to always speak on the mundane and simple topics that normally fill everyday conversation.
For the longest time, I was ashamed to be labeled as an introvert. I thought there must be something wrong with me, some wiring in my brain that kept me from wanting to talk. I would beat myself up over it, and admire the people that could strike up a conversation about the tiniest of things, making friends as easy as counting to three.
I embrace the label now. I am proudly an introvert – if you feel the need to label me this way – because of the qualities that come with it. I am a good listener, an abundant feeler, and when I do choose to speak, I know I am saying the right thing. My opinions and thoughts are well thought out, I care deeply about everything and everyone, and I enjoy my own company. I don’t fear being alone with my thoughts anymore, because I am one of my own best friends.
Which label do you fall under? I personally find that most of us fall somewhere in between, and that is perfectly okay.
A Kinda Pretty Mess 