I'm not sure if this
is something everyone can relate to, if it's a girl problem or if it's
just me who is affected by it, but let me tell you something. Sometimes I look
in the mirror not just to check that I don't have any stains on my clothes or to
check my face for leftover toothpaste, but in order to really look at me. As a
matter of fact I assume that every single person who knows me has probably more
of an idea about my face, its shape and generally how I look than I do.
Sometimes when I share one of these intense looks with my own reflection
it happens that I do not even recognize me anymore. Or maybe that's just the moment where I can truly see all my features unlike those short glimpses I get
throughout the day.
Usually when I take a
little more time to look at myself I start to see every flaw. I don't have pure
skin, there is this scar on my forehead and I think that my face is genuinely
not what I consider good looking. Of course there are also things about my body
that I dislike, which add up to my vain unhappiness. I mean I know that I could
do more for myself and I'd probably look better, I could wear more make-up, use
skin care more regularly and dress better, but even though I think about these
things doesn't mean that I think I should do them every day.
There are also other days
luckily, in which I can't help but compliment myself, like for example the
colour of my eyes, for how my hair lies or sometimes a shirt that I bought that suits me. Getting a
compliment from a friend is cool and feels nice, but getting one from my
harshest critic, me, feels just as good. Sometimes one of these
I-kind-of-do-not-dislike-myself-that-much days can lead up to some pampering.
Sometimes I start to paint
my nails, just because I can. I do not care on most days, yes, but I can enjoy treating
myself with some make-up or nail polish from time to time. It might not end then;
sometimes I want to embrace that good feeling even more so I start to look into
my wardrobe for the right piece to enhance my beauty. When I found it I look
into the mirror again. It's the same person I considered ugly the day before,
the very same features, but my perspective has changed. It happens that I spend
minutes just standing there, trying to understand why I can feel so different about
my own body that has not really changed but just feels different. From time to
time I'm done at this point, looking and trying to figure out my own self, but
it there are also moments when I move on to another Level.
I hate photos of me. I
don't mean I dislike pictures of me and my friends, I love them. I just don't
like me alone in a photo. There are only two moments when it's ok for me to
take a picture of myself. Firstly when my profile picture on facebook is so
outdated that I managed to change my hairstyle twice since taking the last one
(trust me, that did happen way too often) and secondly when I feel beautiful. As
a result I have probably more selfies than you'd expect, but most of them were
taken on about six days throughout my entire life.
Let me tell you, giving
yourself an ego-selfie-photo shoot is a real joy. Some of my pictures look very
very bad so I delete them just after taking, but others are very nice ones too.
Don't be embarrassed to pose a little; no one is ever going to see them anyway,
unless you decide to share them. Enjoy your own body,
feel unashamed. Try out different angles, pull faces or
use filters, whatever pleases you. Don't listen to anyone, not even
yourself, when they tell you you're worthless or ugly as beauty is in the
eye of the beholder. If you dislike cameras as much as I do then face it
anyway, you don't want to look at all the beautiful photos of your friends and
pretend all of them look incredibly good and you are the ugly duckling. It's
not true. And remember, one thing is for sure, a picture says more
than a thousand words.
Cheerio.
I should probably just stop
making titles out of pop songs I don't even like, but the other option I had
was "from Saul to Paul" which from the perspective of a non-church
person sounds either bad or like absolutely nothing. Anyway, here is the thing.
There is this topic that
has haunted me for a long time now and whenever it reappears in my head I
struggle with it all over. If you dislike everything biblically touched then
feel free to skip this paragraph from here on. Otherwise just continue it is
actually something more or less relatable. I'm not sure if you are familiar
with the biblical story, but there was this bad guy called Saul who wanted to
haunt down all the Christians only some years after Jesus had died. He was very
successful doing it until one day all of a sudden he had an encounter with
Jesus himself and that changed his life forever. Usually this little story and
his life are used as a metaphor to cheer up those who consider them self too
flawed as that they could ever be used by God.
As a person who lived on
this planet for nearly twenty years let me tell you two things. Firstly we are
all flawed and broken human beings. We all have scars somewhere, visible or
not. Secondly, still some people have it worse than others and I just know
where my place is in that scale.
I am a lucky girl. Don't
get me wrong, I remember this time a year ago I spent most of my nights crying
myself to sleep. You can now either think I'm weak or you understand that the
breaking point of everyone is different. As you can see it took me less than a
year from the ground up again. My life consists of valleys and peaks and I make
sure to enjoy the view from a viewpoint as long as I'm up there. The next little
down is probably just around the corner, its shadows reaching for me. I should
just be grateful for all the sun that I got during my life, but it's a source
of fear instead.
There's this saying
"God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers". I mean if
you are going through a hard time that sounds perfect, but when you know
yourself that you handle things moderately then it's not as pleasant. This
saying basically makes me the weakest soldier to ever join the forces. I honestly fear that I will not be taken seriously ever if my life resolves like
this. Don't we all look up to those incredibly strong people who have not been
taken down by anything?
Now don't get me wrong. I'm
not asking for actual bad things to hit me, that'd just be plain stupid, no
thanks. I also know what some people around me went through and I am very thankful
that I didn't have to deal with it. Sometimes I just fear that due to me being
what I call lucky, I do not understand how hard it actually is. Pain forms you,
no one can tell me it doesn't. Imagine this piece of clay. It doesn't become a beautiful
vase without some serious kneading, right? Humans are the same I think.
The fears get even worse
when I think of what I want to do in the future. I might see some pretty
terrible things later and I'm not absolutely positive that I can handle them.
I've known that for a long time now and I still worry that that's the main
reason why I'm not supposed to ever work in the field I plan to. What if I just
fail due to my own weakness or because I simply won't be taken serious.
I'm a white girl, coming
out of a family whit not too many issues. What do I know about the real world,
about things like depression, violence, poverty, world hunger, drug abuse?
Nothing. There are some other things I know though. I know that I'm willingly
to learn about them. I want to listen, I want to help. I might not be strong
yet, but I'll learn it, step by step, fight by fight.
Sometimes I also feel like
not yet awake. I think that there is more to me that I am now and I want to use
my full potential. How do I wake up when I feel like I'm asleep all the time?
How do I get past that stand-by mode, how do I awake the Paul that lives inside
this lazy little Saul?
I think it's about
transformation in general, about growing over you, again and again. You don't
need to hit rock bottom, but you need to face fears. Everyone needs to fight
their own battles, one demon at a time. If my biggest problem is my own laziness
then that doesn't mean it's less of a problem than real life depression.
Whatever hurts me is something I as a person cannot tolerate anymore. I might
not have heroic stories afterwards, but I'll have personal growth and trust me,
nothing is worse than standing still for too long.
Cheerio.
P.s. Sorry I'm lame, NaNoWriMo is eating my soul and my time. Which is a bad excuse but yeah .
