For as long as I can remember, I have never loved myself. All throughout high school I struggled with fitting in and being accepted by my peers. Now looking back, I realize that this was most likely a reflection of how I viewed myself. For a long time, I’ve never felt good enough; I've never felt like the prettiest person, or the nicest person, or the funniest, or the most interesting. I always struggle with comparing myself to others.

Someone always seems to have a cuter outfit, a better story to tell, or people just like him or her more than they like me. For a really long time, I always blamed other people. I was angry at them for being happier than I was. I compared my life to them and tried to figure out what it was that made them so great and what made me so blah. It took years of me struggling with myself, my mental health, and my relationships with those around me.

For a while, I subconsciously distanced myself from those who cared about me, and then I would convince myself that I wasn’t close to anyone because I wasn’t worth it. After fighting this battle within myself for longer than I would like to admit, I finally realized that the difference between me and those who I was jealous of is that they learned to love themselves as they were and I hadn’t.

This realization has only come to me within the past year or so; therefore, it is still a daily struggle for me to remind myself that I am worthy of being loved. Not only being loved by those who I admire, but by myself as well. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t wake up one day and realize that I just really hated who I was and then flipped a switch and ta da!! Not at all. It took work.

I called my parents almost every day just to talk to people that I know love me unconditionally. And somehow, talking to them made me understand that I really shouldn’t give a shit what other people think of me or how they view me. After I recognized this, it surprisingly got a lot easier.

I first focused on my physical self because I felt like that would be the easiest aspect to tackle. I stopped caring about what I was wearing, and I stopped dressing for other people. I would wake up in the morning and assess how I felt that day. Depending on that feeling, I would get ready for the day. Sometimes I would literally look like some sort of wild animal, or I would actually try and look like a human, or sometimes I would really try and even look like a human girl.

It felt good to dress for myself, and I even noticed that I would get more compliments on how I looked because I felt more confident, which I think other people noticed. I also stopped being so insecure about the parts of my body that I can’t change. I’ve always been tall for a girl, I stand at a proud 5 feet and 7.5 inches.

Because I’m taller than most girls, I always felt like I was some Amazonian freak who towered over everyone. And honestly maybe I feel better about how tall I am because my friends now are all around the same height as me, or my little sister finally surpassed me, but I’m confident in being a tall person. I will rock those heels and then proceed step on any tiny person who judges me for it.

Along with being tall, I’m not stick-thin either. I am definitely not a size 0, and I haven’t seen my hip bones since I was a 12-year-old. I’ve struggled with this because since I was taller I felt like my weight was more noticeable than someone who was shorter. I once convinced myself that I would fix this, and I would become skinnier like those Instagram models with the rock-hard abs so perfect that you wonder if they’re photoshopped. But that never happened because I am not one for the gym.

Instead, I started dressing for my body type. I stopped buying jeans that didn’t fit just because the label said the number I wanted to be instead of the number I actually am. I finally bought swimsuits that I felt comfortable and confident in and I started experimenting just a little with different colors and different statement pieces. I soon fell in love with how I felt when I was confident about how I looked and that changed how I interacted with those around me.

Because I finally felt so comfortable in my own skin, it showed through with how I interacted with people. I wasn’t afraid to show them how weird I am (really fricken weird), and to my surprise, no one ran away screaming like I thought they would. It actually seemed like they liked me more when I was my honest self. I could crack dad jokes and dance around like a maniac and people just laughed with me and not at me.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks I’m really funny, but other people do too. Who knew??? As more people started loving how carefree and confident I came off, I started loving myself too.

I fell in love with loving myself. I’m not afraid of coming off as confident, and I think that’s really helped me in my social life and even in my academics. This year specifically I have met some of the best people ever, and they actually seem to like me almost as much as I like them, which is a huge improvement compared to my high school years.

On the flip side, in class, I used to sit in the back corner and never speak up or participate, and my grades reflected that. Now I’m not afraid to sit near the front and speak up when I think that I have something beneficial to contribute. I’ve developed close relationships with my professors and currently am about to wrap up what has been my best semester in school, ever.

Looking back, I don’t regret how I thought of myself in years past. If I didn’t think of myself so poorly once, how would I have learned to turn that around? Would I be in the same place as I am currently? I have never been happier; not only with the people in my life but who I am as a person. I am having the best time of my life right now, and I would not trade that for anything in the world.