As I entered my teenage years was when I started to notice how “attractive” I was or how “attractive” others around me were. It is inevitable to compare yourself to those who surround you and the thought “oh she is prettier than me” went through my head a few times per day. My teenage journey started with an insecure girl. I wanted to have a perfect body, have a perfect face, have perfect hair. The list contained endless things that I wish I was; I was already some of them but I was too focused on the negative to acknowledge my “perfect” attributes.
Everyone is in that awkward phase when we become teens. There is this transition where we start to look like a woman while still looking like a girl, ending in a bizarre combination of both. I would look at my friends and think they are the prettiest creatures that have ever walked earth. My best friends being all model worthy. One of them being tall and tan, with beautiful curly hair, she had hips and she turned heads. The other, being a drop dead gorgeous ginger with sparkly green eyes and an athletic body that made me envy her. Another of them with a flat stomach and long legs that made every single outfit look good on her! Versus me that I struggled for hours to find a cute top to look “decent” on me. All of them flawless in my eyes, all of them being perfect.
Entering high school is suddenly when guys become important. This is the transition where most girls start to want to be desirable towards the opposite sex. Time to say bye to the dorky Gap looks and hello Abercrombie. We exchange our gossip about the new Teen Titians episode for who in the grade had a crush on who. Having the approval of a guy or have one of them interested somehow becomes the end goal, it is like winning the video game of life. The reality of it is that guys are so hormonal at that age that they would feel attracted towards anything that is a breathing creature, but for some reason wanting to be with one was so important.
My teenage self was so self-absorbed in wanting to be someone who I wasn’t that I lost myself. My self-criticism was not only towards my looks, but also towards who I was as a person. I wished that I didn’t over think things, I wished that I was not as an emotionally invested in my problems, I wished that I was unbreakable, even though it was okay to not be at your 100% all the time. I wanted to be fearless, I wanted to be like Katniss Everdeen. I just wanted to be my genuine self but was too afraid of others reaction.
As I continued to grow up, I realized that my biggest critic was myself. People are attracted towards positive energy, so with all the negativity I had against myself I was not going to attract people that added into my life. At the end of the day how could someone love me if I didn’t even love myself to begin with? All the energy I was using to focus on obtaining the unobtainable I should use it to become the version of myself I wanted to be. I had to change what I wanted to change and accept the things I couldn’t change. If I wasn’t happy with my weight then I could work out and eat healthy to change that, however I could not change my pinky toe, as weird as I thought it looked and I hated it, I had to accept it and learn to love it.
Even though my teenage journey has not ended, I learned to stop worrying about others, as cliché as it sounds, others opinion should not matter if I was happy with whom I was and who I am becoming. Having a healthy relationship with your body, mind and self are the first stages into loving yourself. Being a teenager is truly about discovering who you are. Part of me discovering my true self was learning to be self-confident, learning that I’ am just as beautiful as my friends, learning that being with a boy is not a priority, for me my teenage journey was about becoming Katniss Everdeen, and even though I am 18 now and just a year left to become her, I should just give that fantasy up, and become myself.
