Like most, my teenage years have been a bit of struggle when it comes to how I look at myself. I spent a lot of years being uncomfortable with who I am. Granted, that’s probably because I was still trying to figure out who I am. I kept trying to fit myself into this impossible mold of who I thought I should be, based on what others and society was telling me. Everyday, it felt like a battle with myself: “I’m this way, but I should be that way. I look like this but I should look like that. I like this, but I should really like that.” Some days, I lost the battle. I would compare myself to the people I looked up to and go “I’m nothing like them.” I thought that was a bad thing. I wasn’t proud of who I was. I picked apart my differences, my uniqueness and thought of them as flaws.

I believed I couldn’t openly be who I was. I thought I had to hide the fact I really enjoy nerdy things, because not everyone likes that sort of thing. I thought I couldn’t enjoy things deemed masculine, like shooting a gun, because I’m a girl and girls “should” be feminine. I thought I had to hate my body and hide it, because my thighs seemed too big and girls on magazine covers didn’t look like me. I thought I had to hide who I was because I was different. I thought I wasn’t good enough. I had entered myself in a competition I was never going to win. I was never going be exactly like anyone else. I was holding myself to ridiculous standards of how I thought I should be.

I didn’t wake up one day and magically start thinking it was okay to love myself just the way I was. It definitely was not that easy. But gradually, I started to like the way I am over the way I thought I was supposed to be. Eventually, I got to where I am today. Which is pretty shamelessly being who I am. I love everything that makes me, me. I love reading and watching movies based on comic books. I, too, get excited over anything "Star Wars," "Harry Potter" and the like. So yes, I’m a nerd, and I’m perfectly okay with it. I work at a gun range and I try to shoot my shotgun as often as I can, and I don’t care if that’s not a typical thing for a girl to do. I also like the way I look. My body is healthy, and that’s what’s important. I’m happy with myself, and I know that’s the most important thing. I’ve learned to like all the things about me.

I finally realized that I’m not going to please everyone, that I’m not going to be everything they want or think I should be. I realized I was never going to make myself into anyone but who I am, and that that’s okay. I stopped thinking that my uniqueness was a terrible thing. I’m happy I’m who I am, and I love the things about me that make me different.

I’m not saying it’s easy to embrace who you are, and it’s not something you achieve and never have to think about again. Loving yourself is something you have to work at every single day. It’s important to stop comparing ourselves to others, or forcing ourselves to be something we’re not. Just love what you love and love yourself. The only person who you should please is yourself. No one can be better at being you than you. So, be you.