I Woke Up Like This

 

 

This past week I was waiting in line to grab some lunch at PDQ. Standing in front of me was a girl who was, by society’s standards, overweight. She couldn’t have been more than 14 or 15 and was going through Instagram on her phone. I watched her scroll carelessly, not giving much attention to any of the pictures she passed, until she stopped at one. The photo was of another girl, posed in front of a mirror wearing the typical yoga pants and a sports bra. She was wearing way too much make up and giving a creepy, overly sexy face for someone who probably couldn’t even legally drive a car without a parent in the passenger seat. This girl in the photo had the “perfect body”. Tan skin, toned abs, and the giant kind of boobs on kids that almost make you feel uncomfortable.

I watched the girl in front of me stare at this photo for a good 20 seconds. She hovered over the “like” button with her index finger, but then chose to continue scrolling. After a few moments though, she scrolled back up and was looking at it again. She repeated this process maybe 4 or 5 more times before giving in and clicking on this girl’s full profile. Just as expected, her entire page was full of selfies in bikinis and tiny work out attire. I watched as the girl in front of me took the time to look at basically every one of these photos and could see the faint self loathing in her eyes. Eventually, the line began to move forward and she put her phone in her purse.

After leaving, I spent a few minutes in my car, replaying the incident and thinking about the girl who had stood in front of me. I felt like I had accidentally been let in on a secret. And without knowing it, this girl gave me a boost of inspiration to write this post that I’ve been thinking about for a few weeks now.

I know I talk a lot about social media and how it’s ruining our lives. But I haven’t yet touched on how it’s affecting our body image and self confidence. It’s different than looking at girls in magazines, movies, or on television. These girls on Instagram or Facebook are our FRIENDS. They’re the girls who sit next to us in class or work in the same office building as us. It’s worse than seeing celebrities, because we know these people. And so it’s easier for us as girls and as women to compare our own appearances and bodies to theirs.

Now, I’m not saying that girls need to stop posting photos of themselves on the internet. Because quite frankly, if you’re feeling good enough about yourself that day to post a photo for the world to see, more power to you! The issue isn’t with the people who are posting, it’s with those who are looking at the post. We have to stop comparing ourselves to other women. It’s unhealthy and unproductive.

I spent so much of my life being unhappy with my body and hating my physical appearance that I look back now and want to punch myself in the face. I always battled with my weight growing up. And being a dancer didn’t make that much easier. Having to squeeze myself into tiny costumes and getting on stage in front of tons of people never made me feel too great about myself. However, it wasn’t until I got into high school that the real issues began.

I went to Blake, which was a magnet school that focused on the arts. And naturally, I was a dance major. Unfortunately for me, the program focused mainly on ballet and modern. Which I hated. But, I stayed all four years, mainly because I could go to school in sweat pants and spent most of my day hanging out in the dance hall. Also, it was a good chance to work on technique outside of my studio.

However, being stuck with a group of ballerinas all day, everyday did some pretty terrible things for my personal body image. Out of all of the styles of dance, ballet has the harshest body restrictions. And anyone who tells you otherwise is either a liar or doesn’t know anything about dance. The reality is, they’re aren’t heavy professional ballerinas. In fact, they’re aren’t too many healthy looking ones either. And I think I spent a majority of my life having a warped sense of what my body should look like because of this.

It wasn’t until after I graduated that I realized my body would never look like that. It couldn’t. I could starve myself for the next 3 years and I wouldn’t look like that. Unfortunately, before I came to this realization I spent way too many years treating my body poorly and punishing myself for the fact that my ribs weren’t protruding from my torso.

While I was dealing with all of this, I never would have considered myself to have had an eating disorder. But, in hindsight, I look back and I don’t think I would be able to categorize what I was doing as anything else. While I realize I was on the less serious end of the spectrum, I can I see now that I most definitely had a problem.

Back before Instagram even existed, there was another app obsession amongst my friends. Calorie Counter. We. Were. Obsessed. OBSESSED. The concept was simple, you eat something, you put it into the app, it counts the calories and keeps track of all that you intake for the day. We literally couldn’t lick a lollipop without immediately checking to make sure we hadn’t gone over our limit. We also created “The Peanut Butter Diet”. The rules of which were simple, you can’t eat anything, but you can have as much coffee and water as you want. And if you happened to feel like you we’re gonna pass out, you eat a spoonful of peanut butter. The end. Throughout my senior year I dropped about 20 pounds. Which is a lot, considering I wasn’t overweight to begin with and I’m only 5’1’’.  Thinking back on this today, I feel sick. And more importantly, I feel so sad for the girl I was during that time in my life.

Luckily, after graduating and ending my life as a dancer, I eventually got my head on straight.  I realized that I had completely unrealistic and warped expectations for myself and that I had to stop comparing myself to other people. It took me such a long time to accept the body type that I have and will probably always have. And it took me even longer to actually like it.

Somehow, in the past few months, I’ve actually grown to LOVE my body. And while I realize that it’s NOWHERE near societies standards of perfect, I couldn’t care less. I also realize that societies standards are complete and utter bullshit. Who exactly is it that’s deciding what women should look like? Because they should be shot. These are our lives, our bodies and it’s our choice what we do with them.

In the movie Eat, Pray, Love, Julia Robert’s character starts to feel insecure about the weight she gains in Italy. And she has a conversation that is something long the lines of:  
Friend: “How many times have you been naked in front of a man?”
Julia: “Hundreds..”
Friend: “Have any of them ever walked out?”
Julia: “No.”
Friend: “Okay then, eat the pizza.”
I rest my case.

Every woman is different. But the media is trying to trick us into thinking that we can all achieve the same body type. WE CAN’T. We literally can’t. In fact, 95% of the women that “DO” have that body type….DON’T. It’s good lighting, good posing, great plastic surgeons and even better photoshopping. If you haven’t seen the photo of Karlie Kloss where they literally added weight ON TO her body so she didn’t look so sickly, look it up. It’s incredibly sad.

It isn’t about being tall, short, fat, skinny, curvy, slim, whatever. It’s about being healthy and happy. It’s about looking the way YOU want. Not the way everyone else wants you to look. You shouldn’t ever try to look a certain way for anyone other than yourself. Because at the end of the day, you’re the one who has to live with it.

And this isn’t just about your body. This is about EVERYTHING. Your haircut and color, the amount of makeup you wear, the outfits you put together. Don’t ever feel the need to conform to what everyone else thinks is attractive. Get ready in the morning for YOU. Not for your boyfriend, your best friend, your crush, your boss, whomever. Decide how YOU want to look and make it happen. If you wanna get a pixie cut, do it. If you want to get your nose pierced, do it. It want to wear red lipstick, do it. If you want to stop waxing, do it. If you want to give up make up completely, do it. Do WHATEVER you want.

I guess the main point I’m not sure I’ve been able to make is, everyone is unique and everyone is beautiful. You don’t have to be 100 pounds or have perfect boobs and immaculate make up. There are billions of different ideas of beauty and we can’t expect for ALL of us to look the same. Nor can we expect that we’ll all be able to, or want to look the same. What fun would that be???? So, my advice to all women ...stop comparing yourselves to one another. The most attractive quality ANYONE can have, physically and non-physically, is confidence. In fact, I’m pretty sure that I’ve tricked most people into THINKING that I’m better looking than I actually am by simply believing that I look AWESOME that day. It’s that easy.

Beauty comes from within. One day we’re all going to be old, shriveled up and wrinkly and it won’t even matter what we looked like in our twenties. You’re not going to be lying on your death bed thinking back to how great your life was because you we’re beautiful. You’re going to look back and remember all of the wonderful people you we’re lucky enough to have around and all of the adventures you went on. Beauty fades. But confidence can last a lifetime and It’s up to you to choose what you see in the mirror each day.

Below are a series of photos I shot with my best friend  and roommate, Harrison Ponce, featuring special guest, our pup Lana. (Check out his new Instagram page @harrison_ponce for more sweet photos!). These are all completely unedited and un-retouched. Straight from the camera. I didn’t wear any makeup and I opted against doing my hair. Natural and simple. You don’t ever need pounds of makeup, fancy hair do’s  or Instagram filters to feel good about yourself. In reality, I woke up like this. What you see is what you get and it’s such a good feeling to finally be confident in own my skin.