Dear Girls,
Growing up in a decade that seems to pivot around the admiration or shaming of female bodies is tough and no one knows that better than you. Magazines highlight the superficial aesthetics we don’t have. Family constantly questions your lifestyle choices. The cute clothes your best friend has don't appear to fit you.
You go to stores and pick up a shirt that’s so small that you can’t believe a human can fit in it; you chuckle. Then you look around and see the girl. The girl who has the slenderness you envy, the curves you crave for, and the beauty you see in everyone else but yourself. You look back from the shirt to the girl and realize that it might just fit her. You carry the shirt with you to the nearest mirror and torture yourself with the smallest of differences between you and the dimensions of the shirt that now seems to define you. The indirect comparison between you and the girl magnifies. The shirt goes back on the rack and you slowly walk away, leaving more than just the shirt behind.
I’ve been there. It’s always a battle between me and my inner demons since I was a child, but you know what? That shirt doesn’t define you and neither does an S, M, L, or XL. The confidence you exude from every pore in your body when you strut down the sidewalk in the outfit you meticulously put together, puts everyone else in awe. Regardless of the size on the tag you still keep your head held high because you know you look good. Love has no age, race has no boundaries, and beauty certainly has no ideal weight. Weight is really but a number on a scale and that number should not define you, but motivate you. Use it as a way to feel proud of yourself or, like in my case, use it to track progress. Of course you’re aware you can eat a little better and exercise a little more but food is delicious, Netflix is golden, and no one around you can deny that.
I know what it’s like to hide behind baggy clothing. I know what it’s like to feel like everything you put on doesn’t fit right. I know what it’s like to look at yourself in the mirror every day and question whether or not putting on a cute outfit is worth the trouble. But I want you to know that clothing isn’t meant to constrain your body. It’s meant to emphasize the beauty you already possess. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had my portions questioned by family or how many times I’ve cringed when the topic of body image comes up at Christmas. I know how much it hurts to hear but we can’t get mad can we? Because everyone is always just trying to help.
I know my family just wants to help but their version of help is pointing out my flaws and accentuating them; if your family or friends sound like mine tell them the following:
Our flaws do not need to be highlighted, our goals do. Look at what I’m doing to make myself more powerful. Focus on what I’m trying to change and support me without criticism. Help me remember every day that I am beautiful and no less of an attractive woman because I usually think otherwise. Teach me that it’s wrong to live in a world that believes looking beautiful is more important than feeling beautiful.
It took me so long to realize how much other people’s perception of me affected how I thought of myself. Yes, I may have stretch marks in between my thighs, yes I don’t wear overly cropped crop tops because I don’t feel comfortable in them (I mean they can be a bit excessive), yes my thighs chafe and tear my jeans apart, and that’s completely okay. The next time you look at a model on a magazine cover don’t think she’s beautiful because of her figure, know she’s beautiful because of her confidence.
It took years of self-pity, constant comparisons, and sleepless-teary nights for me to realize how beautiful I really am. I want you to understand that going through all of that is unnecessary. You may never be that size zero with the thigh gap but you are sexy and you are beautiful. You’re just the last one to realize it.
Love,
The Girl Who Grew Up chubby.
