We all have played it. The game where we are given the instructions, but nobody understands the rules. We play a dangerous game being something nobody likes. What am I rambling on about? You guessed it: body shame. This is not a new subject and it is definitely something that has been ranted about from some time now. In recent news, there have been headlines suggesting that body confidence is in and there are others that suggest it is promoting obesity. The cards have been dealt to us, but some of us can't get through to the end.
What do I know about body shame? It all started when I was in middle school, of course. The years when we start discovering weird things about our body that we don't like. I didn't like that I was at least 5 inches taller than the tallest girl. I had big feet that denied me from wearing most sandals. My body was overweight, only enough that denied me from wearing the latest fashions. I was an outcast to my classmates. You could say I was the underdog in my situation. The one that would raise me to the top and make me into the winner. I can honestly say I am still working on that. Girls made fun of me, guys made fun of me, and pretty much anyone in between. I remember guys in the hallway calling me a pig and that they would never date me because I didn't look like everyone else. That pretty much set, in my mind, the beginning of the end of my confidence as a middle schooler. I wasn't exactly popular and I wasn't into girls telling me that they didn't like my frizzy hair or the fact that my skin wasn't tan enough for them. Look, I am naturally strawberry blonde, my roots pretty much tell that I can't become Malibu Barbie overnight like these girls can. And that's just what they did. They leveled up in this game and I was on the fast track, falling behind like Mario Kart. High school came and my confidence level could not be lower.
It was only until college that I truly didn't care what people thought of me. Girls became different versions of themselves and I pretty much kept to what I was comfortable in. That's the way you play the game, fair and square. Many people say that as they got older, the more confidence they had because they didn't have to worry about what their followers thought on Instagram and they knew they were okay with what they looked like. I aspire to be more like those people. I don't know how long it will be before a person like myself will fully appreciate what I look like and where I come from. The body shame game is nothing to rush on and if you succeed in playing by your own rules, you have already won.
