"Nobody will ever love you."

"Pizza face."

"40-year-old virgin."

It is funny how seven years have passed since I last sat in my 7th-grade social studies classroom and heard some of my tainting nicknames being echoed around me. Despite my glasses turning into contacts, my braces disappearing, and my learning about acne remedies, the "Ugly Duckling" persona I had in middle school still lingers and breaks my heart today.

I left middle school, I left the town I hate, I graduated, and I am excelling my way to law school right now, but the words that the 13-year-old boys used to taunt me with in gym class still haunt me close to heart. I wish it didn’t, but the reality of my broken 7th-grade heart still hurts today at 20.

I did not think anyone would ever love me. I got told that nonstop. Day after day in middle school, I had boys chasing after me in gym class, laughing in my face how I would never be loved. I believed them. I was 13, you don’t know much at that age other then what the boys you had crushes on told you straight to your face. I remember crying over and over again, locking myself away. I was ugly. I was dirt to the cruel playground of the middle school.

Through middle and high school, the term “weird” would always be thrown around with me. I always asked myself why? Why would I be cursed with a personality that nobody else in this world thought was something unique?

As I got older, I never realized the beauty and the strong woman I was molded into. I never saw the rose growing from the thorn bush. I only saw the "Ugly Duckling." Maybe that was why I dated the worst of the worst guys. They were the only ones who would give me a second look. That was why I allowed myself to be mistreated by guys for so long in my life because that was what I thought I deserved. My middle school persona trapped me in a mindset that I was forever ugly and forever unlovable.

I grew up looking in a mirror and seeing the reflection of what others have painted back of me. I never saw the girl I was. Even after getting scouted for modeling and doing photo shoots for people, I only saw the reflection of what others told me I was. I saw an "Ugly Duckling." A girl trapped in the mirror, banging and pleading to break out to be free.

I wish I could tell you that at 20 I am confident and thriving. In ways I am. After escaping the cold grip of my hometown and leaving the bullies I was able to develop and blossom into my full bloom. It was not until I was 18 years old, standing in my college dorm hallway, laughing with a group of random girls and guys that I barely knew, that I was able to look in the mirror and honestly love who I saw back.

Over the past two years, I started to learn how that person was always there. That free-spirited, upbeat, overly energetic, beautiful, strong woman had always lived inside of me. For once, I was starting to see who I was. I was not the names of pizza face, prude, and nerd that had defined me for so many years of my life. Finally, my beauty was shining and for once, I felt so welcomed in my skin.

I look back to my hometown and I see so many versions of the 13-year-old me. Girls being tainted by the boys they liked. Girls, in high school, being pushed around. People feeling trapped in their own skin. I always hear back from friends there asking me how I survived the brutal strangles our hometown left on us. And in all honesty, I just counted down.

When I was in their shoes, the idea of surviving another two years in that prison was impossible. But it happens. Graduation happens. Life goes on. And I beg you to stop and look in the mirror and realize the true unique pretty you have in you. I let my "Ugly Duckling" years curse my life for so long. I urge you to break free from the chains others have put around you and start to fly free.

We all have our ugly duckling moments. But we all are beautiful. Even in the midst of the moments we are lost. Trust me. Your beauty is shining and you are glowing no matter what your haunting past was.