Aimee's Entry - Learning to Embrace the Skin You're In.

Okay, I'd been struggling with something for a bit and it was bothering me, I kept meaning to write it down and get it out but I never did. So, I talked it out with someone over the weekend instead and now, I'm writing it down.

Have I ever told you that I used to be percieved as beautiful?

No?

That's probably because I've never really agreed with that perception.

In matters of vanity, self-confidence has always been a problem for me. I've never really been comfortable with the reflection that peers back at me everytime I look in a mirror and as time goes by, that feeling of discomfort only intensified.

I've traveled up and down and round and round on the weight scale so many times since Cameron was born, it's a wonder I haven't succombed to a chronic case of dizziness. It's daunting, depressing, disheartening to look at yourself and be disgusted by what you see, to wonder if other people are as repulsed by you as you are. And, it doesn't matter how many people tell you that you look fine, you don't think you look fine and that's the part that's hard to get past, you know?

The battle with insecurity is a hard road to travel and honestly, in the long run, a completely unnecessary one because how is anyone else supposed to find you attractive if you, yourself can't stomach the skin you're in?

Time goes on and beauty fades, that's just a part of life but you know something I recently discovered (with help and a bit of bullying from an absolutely gorgeous woman)? There are so many facets that make a person beautiful and if you're not content with the person you are inside and out, then you're only gliding through life half alive and what good is that? You miss the best parts of life when you're only half living. And she's absolutely right.

So, those pieces of myself I considered beautiful that hopped the train to nowhere and ruthlessly refuse to come back are in for a fight because I've decided that I'll no longer accept that.

I've got to embrace the skin I'm in because it's the only skin I've got. It's mine and it's beautiful.

Yours is too.