I have to admit, I have a bit of an inferiority complex. I also have to say that it's no surprise I do. I'm a bit different than most of the girls I grew up with. I'm short for my age, with a long torso, which makes my legs even more obviously short. I'm also built stockier than most girls, with broad shoulders. The broad shoulders and stocky build help hide a lot of the excess weight I have, and lets me to wear said weight far better than most people in my weight range, but the extra pounds are still there. I also have rather drab brown hair, that used to be almost black at times. When paired with my almost pasty pale skin, my hair makes me look washed out and sallow. My mouth is a bit too small, my head and feet are too big, and my face is too long.
All of these things I learned about myself, because at some point someone told me it was so.
All my life, it was always the other girls and how they all looked, then me. When I was very small, I was picked on because my hair was too dark and I had glasses. Around 6th grade, I started developing before the other girls. Where the other girls were still scrawny or childishly chubby, I started curving out in ways the others weren't yet. It was weird. I was weird. And the others let me know I was weird every chance they got.
Things stayed the same in middle school school. Even if they didn't remind me everyday, it was still painfully obvious walking into my classroom that I was the odd one out. By middle school, my classmates had discovered hair dye and tanning oil. The other girls, many of which were naturally blonde already, were now blonder and tanner than before. I wasn't allowed to dye my hair and didn't really want to be tan, so pale and dark haired I stayed. My classmates were pretty girls, who wore pink and applied nice make-up and did their nails and styled their hair and were fashionable and feminine. I was the odd one, all long dark hair and pale skin and gunmetal jewelry. I was the rocker in the small town, the punk of the class where everyone else was a prep school country girl. In high school, I wasn't picked on so much, but it was still painfully obvious where I stood. I ate lunch alone.
In 10th grade, I made my first friend in school. She was weird too. We sat together at lunch, at a separate table than the others. In 11th grade, I met my best friend, another weirdo. The three of us ate lunch together, separated from the others. This was the school year that one of my teachers told the class that she wanted her daughter to dye her hair blonde again because dark hair and pale skin look horrible together. I was sitting in the front row, a seat to the right. Everyone looked at me, and the teacher gave a hastily put together apology and said something along the lines of "it's not that way for everyone, of course." I told her I didn't mind and knew she didn't mean it, and class went on as normal. That day I went home and cried. In 12th grade I said I was considering getting a lip ring, and another girl called me trashy and goth for it. I was upset I was called trashy. The teacher was more upset I was called goth, because for a small Christian school, being called goth is more insulting than being called trashy. At my senior formal, my best friend, her date and I were seated at a small table that had been separated from the rest of the students.
I graduated high school, and had never been called beautiful.
Upon arriving at college, I cut and dyed my hair. I made friends, far more easily than I expected I would, and had the time of my life. People opened up to me, instead of shunning me for my weirdness. Then I found out I wasn't weird, just awesome. I found out that it wasn't considered gross for a girl to play video games and that my opinion mattered even if I chose to wear black t-shirts and jeans instead of pink and frills. I found out that it's okay that I'm not as feminine as the other girls, that it's okay for me to prefer romping around the woods and getting stuck in trees I was brave enough to climb, but too terrified to get out of. I didn't have to be like everyone else.
At the end of the year I returned to my old high school for my best friend's graduation. People were amazed at my appearance. They called me beautiful, said I looked amazing. The very people who had once thought me less than plain.
Did my face change so much in a year? Did a box of red hair dye, a haircut, a dress, and a pair of high heels really make so much of a difference as to bridge the gap between homely and stunning?
Of course not. The dress, and hair dye, and high heels, and make-up wasn't what made me beautiful. I shone that night because since leaving there, I had been called lovely. I had been told I had the most beautiful eyes someone'd ever seen. I had been praised for my beautiful dark hair and my porcelain skin. I had been told my laugh was infectious, and that my smile could light up a room. I finally came out of my shell, and captivated those around me.
I still get insecure sometimes. It's hard not to, with the media pushing images of starved women down my throat. It's hard when fashion deems my size "Extra Large". It's even hard when I stand next to my friends and all of them are tall and skinny and model gorgeous and I'm constantly looking up to them, and them down at me.
But that doesn't really matter anymore. Because now, now I know that even with my faults, or maybe because of them, I'm beautiful.
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