Member-only story
Self-Love is a Never-Ending Journey
You just have to show up.
I didn’t care about how I looked until I was in middle school — eighth grade, to be exact.
I remember sitting on the blacktop, in my P.E. uniform, waiting for Coach Moreno to come out. My legs were stretched out, exposed.
One of what we would call “popular girls” sat beside me, and started making fun of my unshaved legs.
For weeks, she and her friends would ask why I didn’t shave them, and suddenly I felt insecure about something I hadn’t even thought of before.
Those same girls laughed at me on the last day of middle school when I walked in with what I thought was a pretty dress. I rolled my eyes, but I felt the stung anyway.
It wasn’t just my looks they made fun of. It was my serious attitude, the fact that I was in the orchestra, and even how I never took off my sweater. (They didn’t know my family couldn’t afford new, white shirts that didn’t have black stains under the armpits.)
They even laughed at me for being a virgin. (Remember, we were thirteen.)
I went into middle school, careless about my looks. I’d never once thought about my body or whether or not I was pretty. But I came out caring so desperately about what people thought about me.
