There comes a point when you will exhale

If we're being honest, or, really, if i'm being honest..I hate my body. pretty much everything about it.

 i'm a chubby kid. Always have been. I remember one time my mom asking the doctor if we should be concerned about my weight...i must have been 10? 11? maybe? Old enough to remember and young enough for my mom to be in the exam room with me. I remember my doctor telling me that i was active and strong and as long as i was running and playing and being a normal kid, she shouldn't worry.

and as soon as my mother stopped worrying (which by the way she didn't, she always made mom-ish comments never meant to make me feel bad....just make me aware i'm not a size 4)  Is the minute i started to notice. i started to look in the mirror with judgment. As i got older, I'd silently be sad about it and wondering why i couldn't be different.

i have glasses. My skin ebbs and flows with hissy fits. My butt is big. i have a double chin that i'm convinced is genetic and has always been a part of me. always. always. always.

I'm just big. and my face is round. my cheeks are forever chubby.

And if we're being honest, even when I was most most physically fit. i was still big.

I'm pretty strong. I'll give you that. I have some muscle. i have an athletic build for sure.

but i don't remember a time when i was smaller than a size 14. Ever. I feel like I've been on the verge of an eating disorder my whole life, but thankfully sometime keeps me in check. Jesus. My brain. The people who love me.

I'm funny, because i have to be. Because i'm not pretty not even a little. Don't get me wrong, i like that people think i'm funny. I like funny. I appreciate humor more than most things and i'm smart. and i wouldn't trade those traits to look like Jennifer Aniston or Jessica Beale ever.

i'm the funny best friend side kick. Boys almost never talked to me. Most people mistake my deep insecurity has confidence, because i believe i don't need a boy.

And i do believe that, but i also believe that i might not get one.  i don't need one. i just sometime want one. And the fear of rejection, the fear of someone smaller and prettier and more charming haunts me, like actually

I stare in the mirror and agonize and analyze every roll and lump and look at myself from the side, and most of the time really dislike what i see.

and i have beautiful friends. Like actually it's a little crazy how many beautiful friends i have. i love having pretty friends, but i'd be lying if it didn't make me feel less than sometimes. you know what it feels like to the be the least attractive person in the group? To be the one that somehow ruins photos because of a stupid face that they make? Also...photos make me want to die. holy hell. I can't even.

It gives me anxiety just thinking about it.

Ok, i know, if i hate what i see, why don't i change it? Well, i mean super valid question. I try. and i'm like...active....i just need to be super serious about things. Slash i need to understand that i look how i look. My face wont change. My DNA is my DNA.  I also know i'll never be a size 4. I don't want to be, either.

I just want to like what i see when i look in the mirror. I want my clothes to fit. I want to be healthy, and strong.

I vacillate between wanting to be super girly and wanting to play with the boys. I will always the girl who love dresses but  also loves baseball and rollerblading and can life things, some of which are moderately heavy.

My point? I don't know if i have one. Word vomit in a safe place. I don't i've ever been super honest with anyone that isn't God or my mother about how much i have a terrible bod image, which is directly tied to self worth.

which is disgusting. I sit with my small group of high school girls who are worried about all the same things. I tell them that it will get better, you'll learn to love your body and that they are beautiful.

I am still waiting of that day, too and i'm almost 30. so...who knows when that day will be for me. Maybe never.

I fight the battle every day of seeing myself the way God sees me and the way a very human, very critical me sees myself, and most days i loose the battle.

It's not sad, really, as it is just honest.

Please don't think that i sit around and cry about my body because i don't. At least, not a lot. I can make a joke about it, i deal pretty well, but sometimes it's just the worst.

And trust me, there are big societal pressures pressin' down on me. Under pressure, indeed, and i know they are dumb and not true....but it still doesn't change that fact that the standard of beauty is ingrained in me and i don't fit those standards.

most of the time it's cool. I like being a honey badger, I march proudly the the beat of my own, off beat drum, i do what i want and its fine. But it's still a struggle, you know? And i'd like to think that one day it wont be.

And sometimes, i really like my butt and i look at it in the mirror. I fill out jeans (when they fit) like a boss.

but sometimes i want to wear cute riding boots and cute dresses that don't make me look i'm a circus bear riding a toy bike and a fat guy in a little coat.

I mean seriously.

I'm a work in progress absolutely, 1000% over. I am flawed and broken and honest, and raw and i will fight for you to love yourself but then turn right around and hate myself....but i know that it makes me endearing, it makes me able to have a space to tell a story that someone can relate to, and will listen to. My struggle will preach. My struggle will show jesus. My struggle will makes  someone else's burden lighter. You are not alone girls. I get it. Let's be beautiful together.

And i'm so thankful for the women in my life, my mama has tried so hard to instill all the right things in me and to teach me what true beauty is.

My soul might be beautiful and i hope that people can see that.

Currently I have writer's remorse. I haven't even posted it yet, and already i feel like i've shared too much of the ugly with you. Too much of the crap that i try push out the way all the time.

it's too personal and i don't want you to feel bad for me because i'm not unhappy. I'm not sad. I'm just being real about what 29 years of being this girls has meant.

i have a beautiful life. My life is actually so great and lovely, but we all have something, right? this for sure is mine.

So, can you gain anything form this? Probably not, just that i'm horribly human, and i fake confidence on the regular, and i'm just trying to live a good life and love Jesus the best way i can.

And i really love brownies.

i don't know. Just be nice to each other.