If you know me, you know I've always had self-confidence issues. I believe they started somewhere around the time I added braces and zits to my already bespectacled face. But now that I'm older, I've learned to accept a stress zit, wear a retainer, and put in contacts no matter how irritating they may be at times.

There is still one thing left over from my middle school years that I have just learned to accept:

My not-flat stomach.

As I've gotten older, I've come to realize that just in terms of biology, women have to have some sort of fat on their stomachs. How much fat that is, well that's up to each person. But when I was younger, I genuinely despised my mid-section.

In the past when I stood in the mirror and saw my tummy slightly bulging, I would hate myself for it. I would pinch that extra fat and think 'if only I could just lose this, I would be perfect.'

I would do every plank exercise in the book, I tried to eat healthier, I even deprived myself of my main vice (chocolate) for a month just to see if I could lose my stomach. At the end of all of that, my stomach was the same.

So instead of trying to change my habits, I tried to change my appearance.

I wouldn't wear clothes that showed off my stomach or that clung tightly to me. I wore high-waisted jeans to try to suck my stomach in. I wore tankinis or one-pieces in the summer to hide my stomach. You name it, I tried it and yet, my stomach would still not go away. So I decided to do the hardest thing I could possibly think of:

Learn to accept what I could not change.

Today when I look in the mirror, I look at everything I love about myself. I take everything in holistically and try not to focus on things I cannot change. The journey of body positivity and self-love is hard, especially when summer comes around, but I learned to love the way I look in a bikini.

Now I eat what I want and don't deprive myself of anything. I just started going to the gym regularly but in the hopes of getting stronger. If I lose weight, that's a bonus. I'm just me and it honestly feels nice.

Now, this didn't all happen overnight. I don't want to give you the wrong idea. This happened slowly in baby steps over the course of the past three years.

Going to college and seeing there were body types other than the stick-thin super-muscular people I went to high school with made me realize that the world wasn't made of models like I thought.

This journey is still happening. I still think my thighs are a bit too large and sigh in exasperation when I squeeze into shorts that fit me last summer. Regardless of what I think, I'm still proud of myself for even daring to start my quest for self-love.

When you go out this summer, don't dress to hide. Don't be ashamed or hate yourself because of that one thing you can't change. Learn to accept it and love yourself for it.

You will be so much better for it at the end of the day.