When I was younger, I was convinced that I was going to get a nose job. I told people matter-of-factly that one day I was going to have to go under the knife and get some new nostrils. The thing was, though, I wasn’t being totally ridiculous. Though I like to think that I’ve grown into my nose, at the age of 13 it was probably too big for my face. Other kids who were determined to be d-bags would remind me that the nose is a human feature that never ceases to increase in size. I imagined myself, thirty, with a nose taking up half my face; I would have to get a nose job. There was no alternative.
I tell you this story for a reason that has nothing to do with my own specific facial features. My face has grown into my nose since I was 13, and I don’t have any immediate plans to cut myself open and readjust what genetics and God have constructed. That’s not the point, though. The point is that I wasn’t the only 13-year-old who hated her features. 7 in 10 teenage girls sees herself as unattractive in some way. Almost half of high school girls are on a diet at any given time. We’ve put ourselves in boxes ever since we could. I put myself in the “ugly” box, the “smart” box, and the “fat” box. I reasoned that I couldn’t be pretty, skinny, and smart, so what was the point in even trying to be all three? Since 13-year-old me started hating herself (a phenomenon that I’m pretty sure every 13-year-old girl experiences), I’ve put myself in a lot of other boxes. I checked myself off in the “determined” box, the “good sister” box, the “better friend” box, the “BC Eagle” box, and the “English major” box, amongst countless, more negative, ones.
I think it’s taken turning 21 to realize that I don’t like being in boxes. I am a more complicated person than even the most comprehensive survey can encapsulate. For that reason, I’m deciding to erase all the check marks that I put in boxes over the course of the past eight years. Yeah, maybe they won’t erase all the way; maybe there will be remnants of pencil indented in the paper where I once categorized myself, but I think that’s okay. It reminds me that I once saw myself as something less than what I am and will allow me to laugh at the residual erasures. Silly them, so foolish, so unaware of what I can be.
The other day I got a Victoria’s Secret catalog in the mail. My roommates and I never subscribed to it; the person who lived in our apartment before us put himself (you read that right—himself) on the mailing list so we get the monthly pleasure of scanning pages of lingerie while we eat our morning oatmeal. The cover of this month’s catalog advertises VS’s “Love Your Body” campaign. The models are obviously skinny and wonderfully toned—a perfectly photoshopped picture that reminded me of all the things I’ll never be, all the boxes I’ll never be able to put myself in.
This isn’t an argument about how the models are photoshopped and therefore unreal. Even unaltered, their bodies surpass what mine will ever be (thanks again to genetics and God), but that’s okay. I don’t mind that I can’t check myself off as “model-skinny” or “fantastic thigh gap” or “flawless skin” or anything like that. I’m honestly okay with being small and pale and curvy. I’ve made it 21 years in this body, and I’ll be fine making it 21 (42? 63?) years more. And that, I’ve learned, is what loving yourself is.
Sources:
https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-teens-and-self-esteem
http://downtherabbitholealicebrody.blogspot.com/2013/04/when-dove-criesb…