I am not perfect. Perfect is an adjective and by definition it means "having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be; absolute; complete." Even though I have become more and more confident with my body over the years, I've never felt like I was complete or "as good as possible" in the way that society paints the perfect body or person to be.

A little back story: (once upon a time...) I have always been "the tall girl," and it has been that way ever since I went through several growth spurts in the fourth grade. In middle school, I was the generic chubby kid with the braces. It wasn't until my junior year of high school that I realized, "damn...I really need to kick it up a notch and get into shape!" I was playing basketball and we ran 24 laps every day before practice - little did I know that those 24 laps would help me lose 30+ pounds. Senior year came around and I felt so, so confident in myself and my body. Like most girls though, I would still look at the famous social media people and want to be just like them. I would say, "I want Khole K's body with Kim K's hair and makeup!" But obviously that wasn't going to happen because i don't have a personal trainer or a personal/professional hair and makeup artist.

My freshman year of college is when reality really smacked me in the face. Food - it was every where! My room, the dining hall, pizza to order, my friends room, on campus walk (for free, so duh, I couldn't pass that up), my suite mates room - everywhere. Again, I didn't know that all of that would add up to me gaining some of the weight that I had managed to keep off since junior year.

I learned how to love my body so much within my first year. It was tough but I started to except the things that I didn't really like about my body.

My teammates and close friends really helped me to realize that I should hate the things that are essential and the things that make me me. Here are some of the things that I didn't really like and am still learning to love and accept:

1. My long, somewhat muscular legs

2. My long, skinny, twig like arms

3. My big, size 11 feet

4. My little snack pack (but shhh I'm just protecting my killer six pack!)

5. My stretch marks on my legs

6. My scars and bruises on my legs (from basketball and crew)

7. My "giggly bits"

*this is a somewhat, shorter version, but it covers the basic and general parts/places

Although these seem like seven really silly things to not like about myself, they were things that I have always struggled with and will continue to struggle with. After the first semester of college and of doing crew, I tried on one of my favorite pencil skirts (it's yellow with white poke-a-dots). It didn't fit - instant tears. Who would have thought that one little semester would have changed my body so much? I couldn't even get the zipper up and I was afraid that if I sat, I would rip this fabulous skirt. I took it off and took a long hard look in the mirror. My legs had gotten bigger, not too noticeable, but I could tell. At the end of the year, I came home and I realized that I no longer had skinny, twigs for arms. There is nothing I can do about my large feet because without them I wouldn't be able to stand. My little snack pack just shows that I love food, I'll eat anything! My stretch marks show that I survived the awkward years and have lived to tell the tale. My scars and bruises on my legs show that I have a sense of adventure. And my giggly bits...well those show that I have skin and that its attached somewhere. Once I saw that all of my flaws make me who I am, I realized that they all had a specific purpose in my life, even if I haven't found that true purpose yet.

As late 1990's babies, most of us grew up watching Hannah Montana and we knew, and still know, the song Nobody's Perfect. Well it's true, no body is perfect, we just have to work it. You are your own kind of beautiful. I am my own kid of beautiful. Your best friend is her or his own kind of beautiful. You boyfriend or girlfriend is their own kind of beautiful. You don't have to be perfect, so please, please don't try to conform to what society considers to be perfect. You may not think it but you have "all of the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics," you are "as good as it is possible to be," you are "absolute," and you are "complete."