I am a bold, creative, and innovative twenty-year-old girl who doesn’t give a damn about who says what about what. My hair is bright red. Sometimes, I walk with a smile so wide that even the most cynical human being can’t help but crack that cold demeanor that they carry so well. I wear crop tops, even though I don’t have a “crop top body”, and I am not afraid to be on my own or to have fun on my own. I have a fire in my heart that’s been burning for since I can remember. I love my life and I love myself, though I’d be lying if I said that I have always been this way.

Now, I’m not going to tell you a sob story, though I will say that middle school and high school were the hardest years yet. As a kid, I was bullied for being different, which is the basis for why most kids get bullied nowadays. I also suffered from extreme anxiety, mild depression, and was very self-conscious of how I looked and spoke. It also didn’t help that puberty was working at a snail’s pace and that I had a bit of a stutter. My eating habits varied from eating nothing at all to stuffing my face until my belly grew twice its size. By the time I reached high school, I was a well-known bullseye for every bored and angry athlete or popular girl to shoot their arrows at. I was miserable, to say the least. At my lowest point, I had no one to talk to and was battling my demons with a broken sword and a broken spirit. I felt like my life held no substance and wasn’t worth living anymore. The fire in my heart was faint. What was the point?

Then, something clicked.

My life didn’t have to be this way. I didn’t have to hate my body or myself. I didn’t have to be this way. Once that thought settled in, the reparations began. It was only a matter of time until the fire in my heart rekindled itself.

It wasn’t easy. I was starting from scratch, building up the salvageable pieces of me that I didn’t think existed anymore. All of me was put on a table for examination and construction. I swallowed my fears and slapped on a new skin. I found myself in works of art, expressed my pain in the things that I loved, and stopped internalizing my fears and my pain. I became the opposite of who I was.

I graduated high school at the top of my class and I haven’t looked back since. Once I left, I focused less on pleasing those around me and more on pleasing myself. I swallowed my fears and dove headfirst into a new style of clothing. I dressed in ways that I had only ever dreamed of dressing. With my new sense of fashion came a whole new attitude, and I slowly became the young woman of my dreams. I sealed the deal by cutting off most of my hair and dying it sea green.

Now, here I am. It took me a long time to get here, but I don’t regret the life I’ve lived or the pain that I’ve felt. It’s built me up to be the breathtakingly wonderful human that I am, this very moment.

Now, I say this to you, dear reader: there is always room for remodeling and improvements. Who you are is not the person that you have to be tomorrow, or even in the next hour. Your past, who you used to be, does not have to be the thing that cripples you from being who you dream of being. Chances are that the thing that cripples you now will be the same thing that puts you right on your feet and pushes you to take your first steps.

Take it from me, a girl who went from loathing who she was while contemplating the value that her life held to being a girl who is utterly in love with life and the person she is becoming.

We’re all a work in progress, but I decided when the work began to make progress. So can you.