I was having an emo moment last night and those don’t happen much anymore because I genuinely love where I am right now in this life. However, there are times when those feelings sneak up on me. It’s only human, but I notice it occurs most when I become bored.
I stumbled upon a picture of myself taken in 2021, my composite photo for a sorority I was in at the time. I remember when I got those photos back I HATED them. I thought my face looked so fat and I didn’t like how my hair was laying. Sophomore year of college (2021/2022) is what I consider to be my “peak”. I won my first local title as a Miss, got my first boyfriend, lost 40 pounds, made Top 10 at the state pageant, felt thin in my clothes, and just felt like I was living my dream life.
As I lay in my cozy bed in my beautiful apartment at an Ivy League school where I am getting my master’s degree, it seems so silly to me that I have a care in the world about what I was doing or what I looked like when I was 19/20. It wasn’t until I actually stepped away from those thoughts and glamorized that time of my life that I realized I wasn’t even happy back then.
I was in a sorority I hated with girls I didn’t even like (I remember after a weekend with my dad I cried in the driveway of the sorority house begging him not to leave me there). I was in a major that wasn’t right for me until I switched. I was struggling financially. I was being bullied by my local pageant director. I didn’t really have any real friends, and the friends I did hang out with made me feel bad about myself. I was trying to shrink myself on an unsustainable diet program. I was sick ALL the time. And sooooo on.
The point I am trying to make is that I can easily look back on photos and romanticize my life but that’s what a photo is. A snapshot in time. It is so easy to compare yourself to past versions of yourself. (Or even old photos of you that aren’t even real!!! Heavily filtered, facetuned, etc.) I thought I was the only one who did this, but one of my best friends (who I met at the end of that year) told me I wasn’t alone, and that’s why I decided to write about this because some of you out there might be comparing yourself to a past you. A thinner you. A prettier you. A smarter you. But the only you that matters right now is the current you, so pour some love into her/him too.
I was telling my mom about these feelings and sending her old photos saying things along the lines of “I used to think I was fat?! If only that girl could see me now” and “I can feel myself losing my child/teenage features and that makes me really sad because I’m losing my light. My hair falls out now and my face is so much puffier.” She sent me back recent photos from the past few months and told me I look so much happier, more radiant, and just as beautiful. I’d rather look happier any day. At the end of the day we all change, grow, shrink, morph, and stretch but the only thing that matters is the person we are inside at the core. Also yeah my hair falls out bc I’m officially #old.
Spoiler alert - no one remembers you for how pretty you are or how small your waist is. I won’t get my first job out of grad school because I am the thinnest or prettiest candidate. I won’t win Miss Missouri this year because I am the skinniest girl on the stage. I won’t make amazing new friends because they love that my thighs don’t touch or that my nails are always perfectly manicured. I will do all these things because of everything that has to do with my core and nothing to do with my looks. People remember you for how you make them feel. So yeah, maybe I was thinner and prettier in 2021, but I am a heck of a lot happier now and I think I’m learning to be okay with that :)
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