I Am Imperfect

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The mirror.

I do not think there is a single person in this world who doesn’t struggle with self doubt. I am guilty of looking in the mirror and hating what I see. I look at my reflection and I pick it apart and analyze why I am ugly. I notice my pimples, my pale complection, my tiny boobs, my yellow teeth, my bloated stomach, my double chin, my small butt, my weird fingers, my ribs sticking out, my estranged toes, and so much more. I want to look in the mirror and be satisfied with what I see. I want to be proud of what I look like. I hope one day I can achieve that peace. 

 

Social media.

As a member of generation Z, I always had access to the internet. I grew up where I can text my friends on my  Nintendo DS through PictoChat, play on my moms flip phone, make youtube videos on my I-Pad mini, and eventually do so much more on my own personal I-Phone 4s. I received my first phone for Christmas in middle school. By that point, I had already been on youtube, instagram, and kik for quite a while. Now that I got my own phone, I was allowed access to so much more. I immediately got a facebook, got access to iMessage, downloaded twitter, and made about twelve other pointless instagram accounts. 

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I didn’t struggle with self worth much as a child. I had been bullied the majority of my elementary life, but I never really paid attention to them. I didn’t really compare myself to magazines or models because I knew they were photoshopped and the people didn’t actually look like that. When I first started to hate my appearance was middle school. I started to get into makeup. I wasn’t very good at it, but I liked the confidence it gave me. When I had to take it off and reveal what I had been covering up, that’s when I really started to notice my imperfections. My small lips, my blossoming acne, my thin eyebrows, everything I covered up for fun started to make me unhappy. 

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Once I started upgrading phones, I eventually downloaded snapchat. By the time I had downloaded it, the snapchat filters already existed. I was fascinated how this app could turn me into a giraffe or put a flower crown on my head with just the press of a button. The filters added longer eyelashes, smoothed out my skin, brightened my face, and made me feel pretty in general. Years went by and to this day it’s hard for me to post a picture or video without a filter. Just recently online school started and I didn’t like the way I looked on Google Meets, even with makeup on. I tried for twenty five minutes to download snapchat on my macbook so I can have access to the filters. I look at my photos and videos with filters on them and at first, I think of how beautiful I look. That feeling suddenly disappears when I remind myself, I don’t actually look like that. 

 

Dating life.

I am seventeen years old and I have never had a boyfriend. That statement is true. Now, I’ve had my fair share of middle school and elementary school boyfriends that last a day or two but never anything serious. I have never kissed a boy. I have never held hands with a boy. I have never been on a date. I am obviously still a virgin in every way, shape, and form. It’s not the fact I can’t have a guy, it's the fact that I’m scared to have a guy as much as I want one. Everytime I come close to getting what I want, I push it away. I am scared if I reveal too much of myself, they’ll hate me and I will get hurt. When talking to boys on the internet, I send pictures of half my face, just my ear, my whole face but with a filter, me with makeup on, and everything else I can do to convince them I am not an ugly girl. 

       

Dating in this modern era is nearly impossible. Most young men don’t care about finding a girlfriend, they just want a girl who sends nudes. No surprise here, I don’t send nudes. Occasionally I will get a burst of confidence and take a picture in a bra, but I save it just for me to see. When boys ask me for nudes, it is the most frustrating thing in the world. I don’t even know where they are from yet and they suddenly want to see my boobs. It makes me feel so objectified and I start hating myself when they ask. Isn’t that stupid? I hate myself for getting asked for nudes. I start to think that I must have marketed myself as an easy slut who sends her vagina to everyone who asks for it. I must have had that “I’m horny” look on my face in one of the pictures I posted. I must have asked for it.

       

I don’t have any naked pictures of me in my phone. That is true. I have never taken and saved a naked photo of myself. That’s because I hate my body (and its child porn). I don’t judge people who take nudes. I don’t judge people who send nudes. It’s a modern day love letter. The girls who have taken nudes, sent them, have been exposed, and can still walk out in the world with their heads held high deserve an award. It’s not that I don’t want to satisfy a boy with nude photos, it’s that I don’t think I can satisfy them. If I am not confident in my own body, how am I supposed to take a naked photo and send it?

 

Compliments.

It’s exhausting to hate yourself. You try to talk it out with family or friends and they question you. They say something along the lines of, “Why? You’re beautiful!” and it never really helps. For me, I feel like I’ve guilted them into saying it. I feel as though I have subconsciously fished for a compliment. Sometimes, I even respond with “you’re my friend, you’re supposed to say that,”. It’s annoying when my friends don’t see how gorgeous they are and I wish they could see themselves the way I see them, but I think so negatively of myself, I bet they feel the same way.  

       

I hate receiving gifts. I always feel this guilt in my chest and a voice in my head tells me I don’t deserve the gift I have been given. Gifts make me feel guilty, but they bring me joy. I feel the same way about compliments. I post a photo on social media openly asking for likes and comments. I want to see a positive number. I tell myself that I do not care how many likes I get on a photo and how the number of nice comments don’t matter, but yet I still post and refresh hoping that the numbers go up. My desire for positive reinforcements contradicts how I feel about myself most days. I am guilty of subconsciously fishing for compliments. 

 

But...

As much as I look in the mirror and hate my appearance, my body is a temple. My body does what it is supposed to. My parents granted me the gift of life. They made this body. As I have grown, my body has adapted. My body has flaws. My flaws do not defeat me. My flaws do not define me. Your imperfections make you perfect. You are beautiful. You are valid. You are loved. 

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~Natalie Drake