A Young Black Mind: My Body Is Beautiful

“I think that whatever size or shape body you have, it’s important to embrace it and get down!”
— CHRISTINA AGUILERA

Before I begin, a lesson for all girls is to know that no matter what, beauty comes from within. Everyone is beautiful inside and out and you should never change yourself—no matter what others say. I love telling my friends that, but I honestly never practiced the things that I preach.

Growing up, I was always ashamed of my body. I didn’t like my curves, I didn’t like my stretch marks, I hated my acne, and I always stayed inside the house to hide myself from being bullied for my looks. I remember brushing my teeth in the morning and not even looking in the mirror because I would always cry about the way I looked when I saw myself. Over time, I would try to focus on loving my body and myself, but once someone said, “You’re ugly,” I was back to being an introvert. It’s not like I can control the way people feel about how I look, and even when I got compliments on my looks, I never believed them.

My sisters always tried helping me boost my confidence back up. I remember my vacation to Florida months ago. I was beyond excited to go. My sister bought me a two-piece bathing suit and I thought that she was insane. She told me, “You don’t have an ugly body; you are a beautiful soul.” I smiled, as if someone had handed me the prettiest flowers I have ever seen. So, once the day came to go to the beach, I decided to wear the two-piece bathing suit. I was very confident in how I looked, and I posted a picture of me on Instagram.

Most of the comments I received were sweet and nice, and they supported me unconditionally. But some people were not so nice. Once they saw the picture of me being confident, those people decided to use it against me and post it and repost it, saying that I have no body, I’ll never get a boyfriend, I need to lose weight, and many more remarks about the way I look. I cried the entire day because of it. I remember consuming different foods because I was sad about the way that I look. I asked myself, How come when I’m finally confident in myself, I get pushed back down the stairs?

I didn’t want to write for the majority of the summer because I was too sad to get up and write. I decided that I should just rest my nerves and relax. I would read the comments over and over and deconstruct them in my head. I would cry myself to sleep at night because I thought that everything that they said is true. But in the daytime, I would shake things off and joke about the way I look to brush off what others had said about me. I would see a picture of myself and call it ugly or fake vomit and then laugh it off, and my friends would look at me in a different type of way.

One of my friends took my feelings into consideration and decided to take me to an artist. His job was to draw me based on how I describe myself and how other people would describe me. I stood by the mirror and barely looked at myself until I was told to. I kept shifting my eyes away from the mirror because I wasn’t happy about the way I look. The man said, “Tell me what you see,” and that’s exactly what I did. I described myself as wide with a round face and a pig nose. Then, a stranger came in and described how I looked in their eyes. The woman said that I looked very beautiful and curvy. I didn’t have a pig nose, but my nose was very wide. She said I had long hair and beautiful brown skin.

When she was finished describing me, I was able to step out of the room and compare the two drawings. The first drawing was how I described myself: I looked like a pear with a pig nose. Which is what I see myself as every day. Now what the woman described: I was a curvy plus size girl with a big, beautiful smile and long, black hair. I cried instantly because comparing what I saw myself as and what other people saw me as really broke my heart. I have always seen myself as fat, ugly, and many other different names people have called me growing up. My friend also cried because she thinks I’m beautiful and that I shouldn’t have to see myself as ugly.

Well, I’m here to say now that you don’t have to listen to the negative things that people say about you. Nobody knows the real definition of ugly because there is nothing to specify what ugly really is. No matter what the models look like on Instagram, what the guys at your school go for, or what negative remarks people are making about you, just know you are beautiful inside and out. I believe that everyone is beautiful, but it takes a good soul and a kind heart to be considered truly beautiful. So, the question I would like to ask you is…

Don’t you know that you’re beautiful?