Monday, July 14, 2014

Naked

This past week I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and came across a post saying "Colbie Caillat was tired of continually being photoshopped so this is what she did...". Immediately my curiosity piqued so I clicked on the link provided which led me to Colbie Caillat's music video for her song Try. After viewing the video all I could think of was, "I wish this existed when I was in high school." Throughout high school I always had plenty of friends. After coming out of my awkward middle school years I finally colored my hair darker, gained a little weight, and applied makeup daily which resulted in me being at least average. This gave me a confidence boost and I quickly turned into a social butterfly.

pre-hair&makeup
Even here with a pushup/padded bra it was apparent I was flat chested. I had bushy eyebrows, dishwater blonde hair, and makeup and I had yet to become best friends. 
Meet high school.
I had finally gained some weight, not looking so anemic and like I actually ate and kept my food down. I met makeup, I learned you could wax you're eyebrows, and my cosmetologist mom agreed to color my hair darker. I remember in middle school there was a girl who I thought was the coolest of the cool. She was not a 'mean girl' but she had a ton of friends and I thought  to myself "I wish I could be one of her friends", unbeknownst to me I would become not only her friend, but her best friend and attend her wedding years later. Not because of the change of hair or makeup but because once I did make those changes I finally had the "balls", if you will, to speak to people and be sociable.  I finally had an amazing set of friends and I even met my high school sweet heart. Unfortunately, a wrench was thrown in the path I had planned for myself. I moved to another city the second semester of my junior year in high school.

I was devastated.
I thought my world was ending.
What would become of my high school sweet heart and I?

My first day at my new school I was looked at as if I had two heads, each having horns attached. No one would speak to me, I was alienated. I didn't get it, at my old school if we had a "new kid" we all became overly excited and rushed to meet them in hopes of gaining a new friend, many of which I took on... not here though. My insecurities resurfaced and my only outing was to my boyfriend that lived an hour away. Our nightly phone conversations started to become repetitive...

him "hi sweetie, how was your day today?"
me "horrible, I hate this school, everyone sucks..."
him "oh, just be patient I'm sure everyone will grow to love you!"

Then I would spend about 30 minutes to an hour whining and crying about how I just wanted to be back home. I slowly started alienating myself from my hometown friends. They had the life I once had and wanted back, I had to prove something, I had to make new friends, I had to pretend that my new "home" wasn't so bad and I would be a-o-k. 

It wasn't, at all. After about two months of being at my new school I finally had two people start talking to me. A bisexual female, T, and a homosexual male, D. You can imagine the reputation I quickly acquired by befriending these two. Somehow, I didn't care. I needed someone, something, to take my mind off going day to day with no one to talk to because now my HSSH was randomly becoming too busy to talk. Later D confessed that on my first day of school he was going to ask me to sit by him and once I took the seat he was going to walk away and laugh...I might want to add that D was a total diva! The only thing that stopped him was T telling him he was a horrible person and talking him out of it. 
D & I on the last day of the semester.

I remember going home after school each day and jumping on the treadmill and running my ass off while repeating in my head, "I will be skinny like the popular girls, they will eventually talk to me, I will soon make friends..." mind you, I only weighed 110lbs, so fat right? insert complete rolling of eyes. Looking back I want to cradle that girl that I was, tell her she was good enough and beautiful, and that it wasn't her, it was them. 


Fast forward to years later I am happy in my own skin. I will be the first to admit I love makeup, I love changing the color of my hair, and I love getting my eyebrows, toes, and nails done. However, I do this stuff for me, not anyone else. I am comfortable in my skin to go to the grocery store with no makeup on, not caring who I run into, with my hair unwashed and on top of my head. I am right where I want to be and each night I get to lay down beside a gorgeous man with my naked face and wet hair and guess what, he still loves me.

 For the sake of the video, here I am naked, exposed, and still beautiful. Why? Because God didn't create me to have a full face of makeup on when I came out of the womb and dare I say that he created something less than beautiful. Makeup should be for fun, not to hide behind.

Side note: I later went to prom with D (his senior year, my junior) and we had a blast. I still keep in contact with him today but not often. I didn't marry my high school sweet heart, we broke it off a month before my senior year prom. I got into the 'popular' group for two weeks until they spread rumors around the entire school that I was a lesbian thus leaving me to eat my lunch in the bathroom  stall (because I would have food thrown at me during lunch) until I befriended T which led me to eat my lunch in the Art room with her. 

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