It sucks, doesn't it? Wanting to be someone or something you are not.

I completely understand.

I, too, have been where you are.

I know the pain of waking up every day only to want to fall back asleep. I know how it feels to look in the mirror and absolutely hate who you are. I know the feeling of seeing every Instagram-famous girl and longing to live in her body. I know the feeling of going to buy swimsuits or school clothes just to leave disappointed and empty-handed.

I know the feeling of hating going shopping with friends because you're afraid they will see your pants size. I've been the girl to cut the tags out of my clothes so that the girls in the locker room wouldn't see my size.

For so long, I hated my body.

I hated mirrors. I hated doctor's offices because I had to hear my weight as if I didn't already know. I hated summer because summer meant wearing swimsuits. I hated getting undressed.

I hated who I was because all I saw was what I was.

I failed to see the beauty that I beheld. I saw the three digits on the scale, and for so long, I thought that those defined me. I thought that I would never amount to anything. I believed that I was incapable of being adored or loved because I had meat on my bones. I was wrong.

As much as I loved to blame it on others opinions, the only reason I hated who I was, was because I lacked to actually see WHO I AM. I tried to fit myself into a box. I tried to make myself be the Instagram model. I tried to be like the other girls — the girls who were size 0 and what seemed to be the most perfect lives. I longed to be them.

I longed to lose every inch of weight on my body so that I too could be “happy."

As if happiness has anything to do with body shape or size.

I remember nights where I would cry myself to sleep because I didn't feel like I was good enough. Nights where I hated my body and cursed the girl I saw in the mirror. Nights where I would wash baggy T-shirts and sweatpants for the next day so that my curves would disappear underneath them.

At the age of 16, I was distraught. I hated who I was. I absolutely couldn't stand the body I was in. I remember that girl so vividly. The girl who woke up every morning lacking happiness because she was too naive to see who she really was.

I remember the day it all changed.

I remember, so vividly, the conversation I had with my big sister on the way home one night that truly changed my life.

She was always so much different than me. She still is, and that's OK. I love her regardless, and I know that she loves me.

She was the varsity cheerleader with the body that everyone seemed to love and want, myself included. I remember telling her, with tears in my eyes, all about how I hated who I was. How I hated my body, and even wished to escape the world because of it. What she said that night probably impacted me more than anyone else's words ever had though.

She, the perfect all-American cheerleader that had all the boys wrapped around her fingertips, simply said: “Abbie, you don't think I hate my body and who I am too?"

It was simple. It somehow encouraged and inspired me beyond words, though. I'll never forget it. I'll never forget how the weight simply lifted off of my shoulders to know that I wasn't alone.

For so long, I didn't see that. still thought that being small somehow meant absolute perfect happiness. On that day, I finally realized that body shape, size, width, nor height had no effect on happiness, and that's where the game changed.

I realized that I could be happy regardless of the amount of skin on my bones. I could be happy regardless of the mix of those three numbers on the scale. I, for so long, had let my true happiness solely depend on how I appeared.

See, life is so much deeper than that. Everyone hates how they appear. You'll forever want to change something about yourself. You'll forever be Pinteresting or googling weight loss plans and keto diets. You'll forever hate buying clothes. You'll forever wish to have the body of someone else. It's ingrained in all of us. We will forever be jealous and want more because we are all human.

It's OK to not fully love your body. It's OK to magnify your flaws. It's also perfectly OK for you to want to fix them. That's great, but do not let what you look like define who you are. Do not let what you see of yourself define the happiness you withhold.

You are genuinely beautiful. Whether your pants size is a 00 or a 32. It's perfectly acceptable to shop in the kid's clothes because junior sizes won't fit you, but it's also perfectly acceptable to shop in the plus-size section.

ALL sizes are beautiful.

So many times in society today, we give a deep victimizing meaning to the word “size." When the true definition means something so much simpler.

Size: “Each of the classes, typically numbered, into which garments or other articles are divided according to how large they are." - Oxford Dictionary

Reading that, I can almost guarantee that you got a negative taste in your mouth when it stated: “according to how large they are." I did too. I almost wanted to erase the sentence before and not even add the definition. Until I read the statement over again.

Not once did it say how people were divided, it said garments or other articles. We have seemingly given life to that word in our society. We have let it define us. We see the word large and develop a negative stigma. We also see the word small and develop a negative stigma.

What truly is perfect then? Is there even a perfect “size?"

The answer is: YES!!!!! It's called: ALL.

Stop humanizing your size. It's merely just a way to separate garments so that you don't have to spend hours looking for the one that fits you. Stop seeing the number on the tag and giving it deeper meaning and basing your happiness on it.

Love what you see in the mirror. Like the girl's picture you see on Instagram with the small waist, but don't strive to be her because truthfully she probably dislikes who she sees in the mirror just as much. Like the picture on Instagram that your bestie shared for your birthday where you have a double chin and fat rolls. Love every bit of it, because that girl fought to get where she is.

That girl has done her fair share of damage, but she has done so many amazing things in her lifetime. She has conquered giants that seemed far too big. She has hated herself when in reality there is so much to love. Love her. Keep her healthy. Keep her happy, be fully her, and stop trying to be someone else.

Love the person you see looking back at you in the mirror. Fall in love with her even. Share her as your WCW if it makes you feel good. You deserve recognition, even if it's from yourself.

You will never be anyone but you. So, do the thing. Love life. Be happy. Laugh often. Cry when it hurts, but get back up and conquer. Look in the mirror and see the good. Love what you see. Love the rolls. Love the plus size isle. Love the kid's clothes. Love the juniors section. Love who you are and what you are. Stop hating the numbers you see. Stop wanting to be something that you are not.

You, bare-faced, bare skin, messy hair, baggy-eyed, are absolutely beautiful and fully capable of absolute happiness.

It's all within.

Let what's within express what's without.

You are beautiful. A million times beautiful.

You are you.

You are loved.

You deserve the world.

Rock what you got. Express it. Show up in the outfit that you've always loved. Rock the numbers, instead of letting them rock you to sleep.

You got it all. It's in the bag. Go kick the world's tail.

You are gorgeous. You are exalted. You are a loved one.

Never forget who you are, what you've been through, when you realized who you were and the game changed, where you've come from and where you are headed, and how you've conquered everything that life has thrown at you.

It's OK to not like what you see, but don't let it define you. It doesn't have that kind of power, my love.

You are an absolute babe.

Love yourself, it is, after all, the greatest revolution.

“The human body is perfectly imperfect, ever-changing, and never was meant to fit an impossible standard of perfection." - Real Food Whole Life

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL JUST THE WAY YOU ARE. LOVE YOURSELF. PERIOD.