Pretty Hurts

 Hey guys. As of this moment, I'm a size 12! You have no idea how immensely proud I am of myself. That said, sometimes I find myself having to be reminded of what I've accomplished. I'm 20 years old, but even at my age, jabs at my weight still strike a nerve. I could list a good number of reasons that strengthened my conviction to shed some pounds. One of them, and a strong one, is visitors or relatives always feeling the need to question when I decline some manner of food, or serve small portions, and someone offhandedly states that I must be trying to lose weight and/or am on a diet. To which I give a small smile, bow my head and promptly block out the conversation.

    Now, this doesn't seem like that big a deal, and there's probably no malice behind their saying so, but it tends to get under your skin after the umpteenth time you hear it. Since my weight loss journey, comments of this nature were blissfully absent and were replaced with observations of how baggy my clothes are, to my absolute delight. So imagine my utter deflation when at a seminar of sorts yesterday, it came up twice. Twice. First because I don't take sugar with my coffee. Then when I didn't take afternoon tea. I mean, how about, I'm just not a fan of tea! Honestly if someone were relating this to me, I'd have thought it was a joke. File it under #BigGirlProblems.

    My mood pretty much took a nosedive from there. I was angry at myself that I let their comments bug me as much as they did, and that because of it I began downplaying the progress I've made. I hit an all-time low when I actually zipped up my jacket. Lord knows I was beyond relieved when the day was over. My general mood was in the dumper. That is, up until this morning when I came across a Facebook post from 'Humans of New York' that had the photo of a plus size woman striking a pose in her underwear sporting a huge smile, the caption a tribute to different people who in some point in her life took a jab at her weight. She went on to say how OK she was with her stretch marks, which she's had since puberty. Of course, the comments that followed ranged from "You're beautiful!" to "You're a pig" (I kid you not).

    After reading this, I just smiled and decided to get over myself. It was one of those moments when you feel like you were meant to read something, and it genuinely speaks to you. I don't quite know how to best put what it felt like in words, only that I realized it was high time I reevaluated my self-perception and fell back in love with myself. This is why Beyonce's Pretty Hurts resonates so strongly with me. And with that, I leave you with these emphatic lyrics.

Pretty hurts

Shine the light on whatever's worse

Perfection is the disease of a nation

Pretty hurts

Shine the light on whatever's worst

Tryna fix something but you can't fix what you can't see

It's the soul that needs the surgery

Are you happy with yourself? 

Lovely week y'all :)