Love the skin your in!.(My experience with self love)

I'm writing this because many young people have been through this growing up. For those who have never been through they simply don't seem to understand what it's like to feel alienated inside of your own skin.

Growing up, I would say that I wasn't the prettiest or had the best body in school, but I would say I was uniquely beautiful in my own way. Coming for a mother who is an extremely beautiful mixed African American woman and a father who was uniquely handsome Tanzanian man. Looking like my father I didn't look like the other children in my class. As with everything when you look different your a target for the evil comments about your appearance.

By the time I was in the third grade I started to realize that not only did I have large slanted eyes, a full bottom lip and I blessed with my father's flat nose. That I was bigger then mostly everyone else. It wasn't the lack of activity because I ran just as fast, danced just as good,  jumped just as high, and you can just say I kept up with the smaller girls. So most of my friends where smaller girls. Except for a few.

This was at the age when I started to become interested in boys and I was noticing that they looking passed me and at my friends. I think this is when I begin to pretend like it didn't bother me even though it did. This is when I began to eat my feelings. I wasn't the typical over weight girl that stuffed my face with cookie and cakes (My mother didn't really keep such things in the house) but when that moment came I binged. Being in denial saying that  I'm good I don't eat that much Monday through Saturday I only eat a lot on Sundays so I should be fine. I wasn't fine I continued to blow up.

It wasn't until 8th grade in middle school when I began to realize I wasn't the only one who was uniquely beautiful and that I should except my beauty for what it was (different) Just because I was feeling good didn't mean the name calling, little remarks, and stuff like that ended, it continued. Once I was I  High School I was able to prefect the image  of "not caring" but I use to go home and look at myself in the mirror and just be upset.  It just felt like I was just blessed with an amazing personality but very few people took the time out to show interest in knowing me.

High School was the place where I rebelled because I felt like no one understood me and when I came across those who excepted me I tend to have been a little rebellious. It was like run across a bunch of misfits for different reasons and finally feeling like you belonged. School had became a memory for me I no longer wanted to be there so I started cutting class a lot. Then eventually said to hell with school all together at the age of 16.

When I was 17 it dawned on me after being out of school for a few months that I was a drop out and decided that if I was going to fix anything in my life I was going to fix not having a diploma and enrolled in Job Corps. I remember people swearing that I couldn't do it.  That's when I can say was the first time that I did something that wasn't rebellious because people said I couldn't. I began to realize my strength during this time ( might sound crazy) but regardless of how I felt on the inside. I had just freshly turned 17, packed up my bags, and went somewhere with a bunch of people I didn't know in a location I've never been. I was without my friends (Whom I consider my family), my mother was everything, and I was at a place I couldn't run away from whenever I wanted to . A month after what was suppose to have been the beginning of  my senior started I had my diploma and that was the moment.

I stopped basing my life on what people said about me. I'm not gunna lie I still cared but I no longer let there word's define me. That's when I had a peace of mind for everyone who called me ugly, fat, stupid, dumb, and etc there was someone who said the opposite. I made it my mission to only focus on the positivity in my life. Did I continue to rebel? of course I was a teenager with very strict mother but I wasn't rebelling against myself.

Children these days have it so much worst at least when I was growing up I didn't have a Kardashian Family that the world thought everyone and their bodies should look like. I was never the one to open up about my feelings growing up but if no one tell our children that they too felt such was then like me they're going to feel alone lucky for my mom I just rebelled. Some kids actually take their lives because of this.

I started to paint my picture based on my perception of myself and no one has been able to tell me that my abstract art wasn't beautiful...

Hope this Helped Someone!

Love You Guys!

Petals Falling til Next Time! xoxoxo!