a poet's journal

august thirtieth

this, i believe.

I believe in the girls who strive to love themselves, even when their surroundings unknowingly push them to feel the complete opposite. The girls who push away society's standards to fight to fit in their own skin. I personally classify myself as one of them who is still in the process with fully believing in myself. At a young age I was never fully aware of how much people in the world cared about how I looked. Nothing from the outside world made an impact until I began getting a bit older and the concept of body image, along with words from the inside world, made me question how I look.

Within society it's painted out to be that girls should look a certain way. Add on personal words from those around you, and the image you see with any given mirror suddenly becomes distorted. The adjectives "fat," "tubby," and sometimes even "lazy" molded into something that would try to defy me. Even in that time of need, I had an elder and her backup willing to protect me. Even the strongest protection, a million against the negative one, I will still believe that one. Eventually I found a way to flip the negative around. I took a pencil to paper and wrote rhymes of the things I dealt with. It was a temporary fix but a passion for writing came out of it. Because at the end of the day I knew things were going to get better.

Words form art and art can eventually lead to awareness. Awareness that all women are beautiful and have a purpose. Not only just self love for your own image, but also allowing others to love you for you. Allowing them to embrace your flaws, and seeing you for all that you are. Most times it can be easy for young women to allow the little amount of bad in, but shut down at the first mention of praise. After gaining that self-love, the next obstacle is allowing others to recognize the good in your image and worth.

With that, this I believe, that it's okay to not meet society's standards of a "perfect" figure. It's okay for a woman to be thin, and for others to not meet the "standard" of being thin. At the end of the day what matters is carrying on that positive body image. To be comfortable and owning the fact of having stretch marks or breakouts every so often. It's the fact of having the confidence to look in the mirror and say "I am beautiful." and accepting those compliments from those around them. That I believe I will fully accomplish one day.