Last night I hit some late night, impromptu drawing inspiration, as is often the case, and I found myself drawing a face profile, as is often the case. I don't know what it is about profiles that attract my pencil, but you can, without fault, find me sketching one.

And as all the lines started coming together I found the woman started to look a little bit like me. But she had bangs and a sharper jawline and more creatively pierced ears.

So I decided if this is going to look like me, it might as well actually be me (or my simplified version of me; I'm not a realist). And so it began.

But before I get to the point of this story, I need to lay some foundation. I have never done a raw portrait of myself, and can count on one hand the times I've even attempted to draw myself. Every time I was asked to create a self portrait in school, I always did a stylized, colorful, and strategically drawn piece that would eliminate the undesirables from the angle I chose to draw--which was always head on. This is not surprising in the least if you know me because you know that my profile is my least favorite angle.

So I decided I'm going all in with this. I'm not doing a glorified profile of a delicately-shaped woman as per usual. It's going to be me. All me--under eye bags, freckles, undefined jawline, kinked nose, and all. My natural, un-made up state. Drawn like a French girl (minus the body hair and it's just my face--minor details). Because I'm a real person. And real people have stick-straight lashes or naturally sparse eye brows or a small mouth and a crooked smile.

Because being real is what makes people beautiful. Naturally, unforgivably beautiful.

This is a point I long ago accepted as fact, but it wasn't until I drew the curvatures of my own forehead, chin, nose, lips; got a hand cramp from drawing so many freckles; and filled in the rest with my cropped hair that I realized my profile is real too. Real and beautiful.

So the point is, we all have little grievances with our bodies. But without them we are fake, plastic, just like the rest. For me, it took about 40 minutes of sketching and looking at my problems straight on (or from the side) to heal. And I'm going to continue to draw my insecurities until they are vanquished.

But this is just my way of healing. It's time to ask yourself: what will it take to forgive your body for its differences?