Before last year, the last time I had worn a pair of jeans was when I was in middle school at 8 years old. Around that time is when I had started to gain weight and as time passed by I never wanted to look at another pair of jeans again. The uncomfortable tightness around my waist and the rigidness around my thighs from wearing jeans made me uneasy and not confident with my body and who I was. From then on, the only kind of pants I wanted to wear were leggings, which always ended terribly because after a few wears, holes would start to rip into the inner thighs from being worn out.

Whenever my mom and I would go to stores to shop for new clothes, she would encourage me to try on a pair of jeans and I remember always getting mad because deep down I didn't think I deserved to wear them because in my mind I had let my body go so I would punish myself to only wear leggings. I was also never able to find the right pair of jeans that fit me that right way and I would blame myself and my body for not fitting into the jeans and not the other way around.

This went on for the next 10 to 11 years. Finally about a year ago, I had started shopping at a store called Torrid at the mall near me - a store for bigger, curvier girls. One day I went into the store with my mom and my brother and while we were looking around, my mom saw a really nice pair of jeans and told me to try them on. Hearing this, at first I wanted to walk away from the jeans she was showing me because in my head, I just wanted to avoid the inevitable. But, part of me also knew that it had been forever since I had gone anywhere near a pair of jeans.

So what I did was I grabbed those jeans went into one of the fitting room, and tried them on. The first thing I remember after trying them on was crying the happiest tears I had cried in a long time and in all honesty, I couldn't believe what I saw and how I felt. For the first time in the longest time, I felt like a girl who could wear whatever she wants. I felt like a girl who wear jeans again. And I know that putting on a pair of jeans might sound small and insignificant to another's ears but to me, this was a huge deal.

Ever since then, my confidence had sky-rocketed and I have been getting closer and closer to the woman I want to be. One who doesn't care about my imperfections and instead of looking at them as imperfections, is looking at them as parts of me and loving them. Because they're not imperfections, they're what I like to call "my trademarks." I wish that I could go back in time and talk to the girl I was a few years ago and tell her to not criticize herself, to not put herself down, to not punish herself or limit herself just because of the changes in her body or the way that a certain clothing item doesn't fit her that same way it might fit someone else. But most importantly, I would tell her to love herself because she is beautiful on the inside and out and she just has to see it.

So if you are like me and you used to criticize your body or you still do, STOP! All those things that you might look at and want to change are part of what make you who you are and they are beautiful. YOU are beautiful. you just have to see it.