On Being Beautiful

Mmhhmm.
I have never liked the way I look. Not ever. I am too big, too pale, I have too many zits. I have big feet and my stomach isn't flat enough and my cheeks cover up my eyes when I smile. I have these little lines on my face that I think I was born with, but that doesn't make them any less weird. I took Chemistry my sophomore year, and for every lab we did, we had to wear these awful looking goggles that suctioned your face and left marks all over them. Lines on everyone's cheeks and such, deeply indented and tinted red by the end of the class period. I never thought much of it-the marks usually went away by the next class period. One time, however, the day after we did a lab, my friend and I were walking back from seminary together and she looked at me and said "Wow, Sam! The marks on your face haven't gone away yet, how tight were your goggles?" I was mortified, and my friend eventually became as red as I was as I tried to explain that yes, the Chemistry marks had gone away, but the lines on my face were permanent. I felt like a freak that day. And I hated myself for hating myself.
There are countless times in all of our lives, I think, when we feel deeply and irreversibly inadequate. Sometimes, ugly and inadequate go hand in hand, as they often have for me. There was the time in first grade when Jacob, a fellow six year old, not so lovingly commented on how much cake I had eaten at a class party. That still stays with me, twelve years later. The time that my classmate texted me and said "The pants are a size six, probably WAY to big for you, but you should look at them anyways". Well, that hurt, seeing as I am a size eight on a good day. The awkward laughter when I joke about how I cannot, for my life, get anything but deep red in the summers, the concealed stares when I go to a swim party and show off the greater good of my curves. I have taken acne pills for a good part of my adolescence, and not just one kind. When one medication stops working, another is immediately slated for arrival in my bloodstream. I have given up sugar on more than one occasion, avoided looking in the mirror, spent countless hours on the treadmill or parkway, hidden my body in over sized shirts and maxi dresses, and tried my very hardest not to care. To tell myself that I am beautiful. To believe those people who have told me on a daily basis that I am. To see myself through the eyes of those that love me. And the sad part is? I still can't do it.
But I am beautiful. Deep down, that little three year old that loves her pretty pink princess dresses and twirling around in them in front of a full length mirror still exists. She often gets buried in an avalanche of comparisons and self doubt, but she never stops breathing. I often think of her when I'm crying in front of a mirror or curled up in my bed, avoiding myself. She looks at me, a smile in her eyes, and quietly asks me why I keep running away from her. Running away from the knowledge of the beauty that I have. And then she hugs me, laughs a bit, and transfers a bit of her self esteem back to present-day Sam. It only takes a step back in time to remind myself-I am beautiful. You are beautiful. It's the accepting of that fact that makes all the difference.