if you’re battling insecurity- read this.

top: forever 21

jeans: american apparel

hat: gypsy warrior

I’ve had these photos for a while. Months. Just sitting in my laptop.

I’ve been a little scared to post them. There are so many up close portrait-like shots. Scary. The only full outfit ones I have are the ones seen above. So that leaves me with several very personal close-ups. It’s always nerve-wracking to post these, but I figured why not. Time to let go of the insecurities and just do it. I could stare at some of them for 30 seconds and find a million things wrong- things to fix. I have actually. I’ve deleted some from the post and rearranged the order. Never realizing that this is the same person (me) in each photo with the same face (mine). How different can they be? I might see some things I don’t like- but, hey that’s my face and no one else has one exactly like it so I think I’ll keep it the way it is. You should do the same.

Like many people, I’ve been fighting the battle of self-hate for a while now. I’m not writing this as a pity post. I’m writing this so that maybe someone who is fighting this same fight will see it. Maybe that someone is you.

We all grow up hearing those positive affirmations. “You are beYOUtiful.” “Everyone is perfect in their imperfections.” The list goes on. I might have fallen for those easily in elementary, but not now as a self-aware 22-year-old female. I know they are true, but I have always felt I am the exception. I know no one is perfect. Even my friends I see everyday who literally look physically perfect to me are not. They have their beautiful flaws. These things that make them the pretty humans they are. Yet still, they see things in the mirror I have never even noticed. Things they would literally have to point out a million times before I ever saw them. We do that to ourselves. We kill ourselves over these “flaws” that are the exact things that make us who we are. “There’s no one else exactly like you.” There’s another one. It’s 100% true, just like the first two. Believe them. If we all subscribed to the “world’s” idea of beauty, we still wouldn’t please everyone. We are all different with are own ideas of beauty. So why try to please anyone but yourself? Not even your (possibly non-existent) twin looks just like you. People ask me and my sister if we are twins. My own parents get us mixed up. We look like sisters yes, but we are so different. I wish I had my sister’s smile, but I don’t. What’s the point in going on about it? That’s her smile, not mine. My sister hates her nose, just like one of my friends. I have yet to see what is actually wrong with their noses. What’s the point in going on about it?

Even if you did change whatever it is you don’t like, you would probably just go on to find a new thing to worry about. That’s just the way we are. Humans. We are so smart, yet so very dumb. I used to think “the second I get clear skin, I will be fine.” A year later, I have much clearer skin. Now, I have moved on to my teeth. Dangerous, dangerous cycle.

My point is this: We see these things as flaws while everyone else sees them as characteristics that make up who we are. The freckles, the scars, the noses, the eyebrows, the ears are all who we are. If I put my sister’s smile on my face I wouldn’t be me anymore. Like I said before, that is her smile, not mine. It’s time to LET GO OF THE INSECURITIES that fight and fight at us each day. Figure out what they are. My ears. My teeth. My lips. Instead of staring in the mirror and trying to figure out how to change them, figure out how to love them. Love yourself. Your face, your hair, your teeth, your body, everything. STOP LISTENING TO THE WORLD. If you give in- the world wins.

Please do not waste another day trying to change the very things that make you who you are. 

I like you the way you are right now.

More specifically, the way you are at 4:36 a.m. When you are asleep and drooling or looking a hot mess out on the town– wherever 4:36 a.m. leaves you. That you. And if you look your best at 4:36 a.m.- then you shouldn’t even be reading this post because you are not a human.

                                                  +                                                   mallory

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