Be Yourself

I've spent most of my life trying to figure out who I want to be in life. I din't know who I was supposed to be in society either. When you're a child, they tell you how to behave. You are told what you can and can't do. Everything you do is only to make other people happy. How can you make yourself happy? When does this all end? I guess it all ends one day, when you come to realize you have tried everything. You come to a point in life where it doesn't make sense anymore. It doesn't make sense to live the life that other people want you to live. You go around in life doing things that you think might make you happy, but it doesn't make you happy after all. You got carried away by a suggestion someone made, or they pushed you to do something different. You want to join a group, but you're scared of the change. You don't know what other people are going to think about you. Are people going to like you? What are people going to think when they see you? Are good looks more important to them?

I was never happy about how I looked. When I was in elementary school, I talked a lot. I enjoyed getting attention all the time. I wanted to be better than other kids in my class. I was only being a normal child. My body started to change at 10. I was getting pimples now, and it made my life miserable. My goal was to cover these little monsters up all the time. One day I had this crazy idea, to cover up all the pimples I had on my forehead. I got a pair of scissors and cut my bangs. I thought it was a good solution, but everyone thought my crooked bangs were funny. I always felt like I was a monster walking around. I was called, "pizza face, " "orange face," and "greasy face." I had no way to fix my face and make it perfect.

Then came middle school, and things started to change. Now it was different, because it had to do with boys. I was only thinking about looking good. I never stopped to think about how I really felt about myself at this point. I had a lot of crushes, but I got scared. I thought boys were going to run and get grossed out about my face. I was still struggling with pimple monsters on my face. I did everything I could to cover up all the little monsters on my greasy face with makeup, and that didn't work either. And then picking on my face became a big problem too.

My hair was the ruler of my life, though. Dealing with my hair is something I would never want to do again. Now I was in high school, and I had to take the bus. I got up at 4 am to get ready for school. It took me a long time to fix my hair. My hair has always been a problem. I have wavy hair, and if I had straight hair, then I would want it curly. I have done so many things to it, I'm surprised it hasn't fallen off, after burning it with the iron to make it straight. I had the same routine til I was done with high school. I loved putting on perfume too, and I still do. I have annoyed people with my perfumes sometimes. I don't know anything about makeup, or fashion either. And I can't stand heels. My sister helped me do my makeup once for my school picture. After that day I don't think I ever did it right. I had a really bad crush on Armando when I was in high school. I was hoping that he liked me when he saw me. When I went to school one day, I was wearing a cute outfit. I was coming out of class and I wanted Armando to see me. He was walking with his friend. His friend said, "look at her cheeks, she looks like a clown." And they both laughed at me. It was like that all the time, I never had any luck with boys. I think it was because I never did my makeup right, or because of my pimples. I had better luck in elementary school when I wasn't wearing any makeup.

One time I dyed my own hair black, and I didn't like it. I guess nobody liked my ugly hair either. Another time I permed it, and I didn't like my curly hair. The next day I wanted my hair to be straight, and it took me hours to fix it. I wasn't too happy with it, because it was a big poof of ugly hair. I've bleached my bangs to look cute, shaved the back of my head to have less hair. I never did anything right with my hair. Then one time, my brother told me, "just leave your hair alone, and never do anything to it again." That was a hard thing for me to think about. So I listened to my brother. I did what my brother suggested for me to do. I finally left my hair alone, I learned how to work with it over the years. When I didn't feel like doing anything with my hair, I just put it up in a pony tail, or in a bun.

Next thing was my weight, I was never happy being overweight. I always looked at all the girls from school, and I wanted to be skinny like them. I did so many different things to be skinny, and nothing ever worked. Exercise was not on my mind at all. I didn't care about what I was eating. I got sad whenever I saw cute clothes, and got mad at myself because it didn't fit me.

So many years went by, and my life got very busy. I didn't have any time to think about how I looked at all. Once in a while I would fix myself for a family party, or for the holidays. My family thought there was something wrong with me. They even thought that I had been brainwashed at church. I'm still a busy person, if I make time and I'm in the mood, I'll do my makeup in a few minutes. I have a lot less and manageable hair to fix too. Today, I just get lazy and I don't want to do anything too look good. I don't stress out about how I look anymore. To me, that's something normal, I just want to be myself, and I feel good about it. A few years ago on my birthday, I decided to change my life for better. I'm happy to know that people want to see the real me. I am the person that I want to be.