Small Strokes Big Oaks

This post comes from one of my former students, Sara Jacobsen, and I could not be more proud of her!

By no means would I consider myself a vain or pretentious person. I am, however, well aware that when based strictly on appearance, I am more fortunate than some.

Not-so fondly do I remember my entire grade school career. Usually, when people speak of their “awkward stage”, they speak of only a brief time when they were young.  My “awkward stage”, on the other hand, lasted for most, if not all, of my grade school years. During adolescence, I was large for my age. I was abnormally tall, somewhere around a size 14 and wore glasses until about the eighth grade. My hair went from a short almost bob-like style to a horrendous curly mess and then on to long, straight, and shapeless. Although I cannot recall ever being ridiculed directly to my face, I know better than to believe that it did not happen. I did everything I possibly could in attempt to fit in with my classmates. I never felt like I was able to be myself because in my opinion, myself was not acceptable. I would see the “pretty” girls in class and wonder to myself why I was not one of them. It seemed that no matter what I did, I would never be what everyone seemed to consider “beautiful”.

It was not until I reached my freshman year of high school that some of those feelings started to subside. Around this time, I began to wear makeup and nicer clothing. Although I soon began to feel better about my personal image, I was still unhappy with the way I looked. I would feel intimidated when I would spend time with friends who I felt were “prettier” than I, thinking that if I looked the way they did, I would be happy. Eventually, I decided I would take matters into my own hands and work on portraying the image that I thought would be socially acceptable.

I am still unsure how, but I somehow managed to lose almost ten pants sizes. Although I am very proud of this fact, I still struggle daily with issues regarding body image. I still have thoughts of “I could be thinner.” I still have a hard time believing the words “you’re beautiful,” because it’s still not something that I am able to see in myself and I still feel that if I were to “fix” myself, I could be happy. Every day I look in the mirror and cannot help but pick out every last imperfection that I see.

The truth is that I know that losing weight or getting a new hairstyle will not make me happy. The concept of beauty is one that has been blown way out of perspective by the media and society. Who is to say that just because a person may be a bit heavier than another, that they too are not just as beautiful? The point that I am trying to make is not the cliché that “pretty” or “skinny” girls have issues with their appearance too, it is that everyone, no matter what their body type or physical appearance, has something about themselves that they would like to change. It’s similar to someone claiming that they “don’t care” how others perceive them. The fact is, everyone cares, and everyone has insecurities.