I'm almost certain that, when I was younger, I used to look down on people who would, now, be labeled as "carefree." To me (most likely because I spent a large majority of my life caring what others thought of me) carefree was synonymous with "sloppy" or "lazy" but recently I've been exposed to the beautiful side of being carefree.

I gotta say, in more ways than one, I can be kind of uptight and I'm also guilty of being my own bully. I worry about things I can't change. I stress over the inevitable. I convince myself that people are talking about me when they whisper. I conjure up the thoughts of strangers as they walk by and wonder if they like my outfit when, in reality, I would bet money that they didn't care. Why am I like this? I don't know. But I'm almost positive it stems from my low self-esteem and confidence (no worries, I'm working on it) and my (past) inherent want to be "normal" (whatever that even means). These are qualities about myself that I'm not too fond of. They definitely keep me in my head while the world and my life whizzes by me. I've had days where all I do is worry and by the time I'm done worrying about things they've already come and gone and I've had no time to actually enjoy them.

Today was almost one of those days.

I got a text from a close friend who invited me to spend a few hours at the beach. My initial reaction was to text back and make up some excuse about how I didn't like the beach or how it would be too crowded; both of those being exactly that: excuses.

The truth is, I love the beach. I love the sound, I love the smell, I love the sun. I love all of it. The other part of the truth was that I absolutely knew that this day if I decided to go to the beach, would result in hours of self-inflicted body shaming. My thoughts after receiving that text went something like this:

The beach sounds fun! Plus, it's nice and hot out.

What if it's crowded?

I should shave my legs.

I need to paint my toes.

What can I wear to hide my cellulite?

Definitely not my bathing suit. (the irony)

I could just wear my maxi dress, it's black.

Should I wear Spanx with it?

No, if we go in a couple of hours, I just won't eat until then. I won't need the Spanx.

I should wear leggings, my legs are awful...but they do need sun.

Maybe we could find a spot with less people and I could take them off then.

...and so on and so forth, for about three minutes until I snapped myself out of all that nonsense and realized I had transformed a simple proposal for a trip to the beach into a self-loathing session. And, although I made wishes to be thinner or for an inherent want to exercise, what I wanted most in that moment was to be free of all the dark thoughts that clouded around me about my body and how other people would react to it.

I just wanted to go to the beach.

In the past, thoughts like these would leave me in the house, crying and plotting my next diet craze. But today I made a decision that made my entire weekend better:

I decided to be carefree.

I didn't shave my legs, I couldn't find my bathing suit so I wore my favorite summer mini dress (legs free for the world to admire), I whipped all of my hair into a colossal bun, took off my bra, illustrated my eyebrows for a little confidence boost, went to the beach and had an amazing time. There were times along the way that I had to remind myself to be carefree and bask in my magic, but it was lit).

After the beach and some guilt-free burgers I came home, kissed my mama, went up to my room and cried. Not because I was sad, but because I began thinking about all the fun times I missed out on because I was too busy bullying myself or criticizing my every flaw and because I finally began to believe those words I've heard time and time again: "you're beautiful."

I know it doesn't seem like an amazing story (and I get it, I just went to the beach) but in the past, I would have made the decision to tear myself down to nothing but today I decided to love myself and I think that's worth celebrating.

I decided to be carefree for a day and I gotta say...I ain't going back.

*peace-sign emoji*