Confidence Is Beauty

When I was younger, I was always that one kid who always got picked on, who was always laughed at, and who always was the last choice. I wasn’t like the other girls in my school (skinny, pretty, or popular). I always tried my best to fit in with the others. I would try and act like them, like the same things, or even talk like them. I knew I was beginning to lose myself, but what could I do? I wanted to be noticed by them, or even be friends with them. Before I knew it, I was the class clown. Every day I would come home from school sad or in tears because someone insulted me. Soon, I didn’t really love myself. I would wish that I could turn back time and change everything, hoping that maybe the new me would be better. I began to degrade my own self. I would hide from pictures, not look in the mirror, or turn down even the most genuine nice comments from others. It got to the point where I decided to move schools. I moved somewhere I knew no one would follow me and where no one knew who I was (probably except two people). I gave myself a chance to reinvent myself.

In time, a new me was created. I made some genuine friends who loved me for how I looked and who I was. They didn’t care for the petty things that my previous school cared for. This was the perfect time to leave my past behind. After a year or two passed, a rumor started spreading around, and you guessed it, it had to deal with my looks and personality. Those genuine friends I had kept telling me to stay strong cause they knew who I really was. Fortunately, I was able to get through it. However, there was still that small voice in the back of my mind telling me that I wasn’t good enough. I was able to ignore it sometimes, but during other times I wasn’t able to handle it.

Fortunately, I was given the opportunity to study abroad. Obviously, I took it! On this day, I vowed to reinvent myself one more time. The only difference is that this time around I would continue to reinvent myself. Always change something or add something new to myself. That way no one can ever say the same things about me. I’ll admit, I took it a little bit too far. For example, I put myself on this crazy diet where I only ate 900 calories a day and stayed at the gym for at least four hours. I kept up with it for about three months because I loved the results. I was getting to be the “ideal” body weight, I got attention for almost being the “ideal” image, and NO ONE had anything bad to say about me. But later I realized it wasn’t the smartest move because I kept getting sick. I knew this crazy diet wasn’t a good and healthy one, but I couldn’t stop.

I then met some new people and they changed my life completely. This new group of friends taught me exactly what it means to love myself. They didn’t just say words that I wanted to hear, but they were real with me. They never sugarcoated anything whenever they were speaking to me. They helped make me stronger and more confident in who I was. Seeing them point out their own flaws, but still continuously loving themselves, made me see how much confidence is a mental state. The more I hung out with them, the more I was able to learn how to love myself.

Today, I am a strong and confident woman. I’ve learned how to push people’s comments aside and not be bothered by their negativity. It is safe to say that I am 100 percent confident in my own skin. And this time, I've vowed to love myself no matter what and to stop trying to reinvent myself because I am who I am, and I am perfect the way I am.