I wake up in the morning and exclaim how life is beautiful. I dress up and decorate myself for the day and tell myself I’m beautiful. I venture outside and tell myself today will be a beautiful day. Sometimes, when I try to tell myself these things, it’s more my mind speaking audibly with my body putting the pain in a jar…
Being born as an identical twin, the family dynamic shifted to me being the black sheep and my sister being the “better one”. It was even confirmed I was the black sheep when in my adventures to attempt to get myself on TV, I was speaking with producers from MTV to potentially be in a documentary called “Black Sheep”, which was never put into production. I discovered shortly after how MTV wasn’t the proper outlet to flaunt my freak flag to the world.
At the time I was having conversations with the MTV producers, I was a junior in college. My weight began approaching its worst. After I gained the “freshman way too many”, I was bullied by a slew of people who were mutual friends with my sister and I, my sister, my parents, my grandma, and even extended family members. I knew I was overweight and was trying to do something about it while feeling quite un-beautiful. When I was looking for a job during my senior year of college, it was the end of April, 2013 and I was crossing my fingers for someone to hire me. The night before my in-person interview for the place I currently work at, my mom mentioned how no one was hiring me because I was too fat to be hired. My sense of beauty towards myself was devoured by sharks and I felt like the minnow with half its tail bitten off. All of the bullying mentally exhausted me so much to a point where I was unable to even appreciate the feeling of the cool breeze or the smell of stir fry while walking around town.
I’ve always been the one who everyone refers to as very different or very weird. Right before finals during my second semester senior year of college, I ended up having a conversation with the IT lab monitor, who was a 37 year-old marine veteran. We ended up talking for several hours on how to accept and love myself; he told me how once I’m able to acknowledge, accept, love, and cherish who I am, I will suddenly attract a following like a magnet attracting several pieces of metal.
After I graduated from college, I had to move back in with my parents indefinitely. Thankfully, I had met someone in the IT department at school named Josh, who introduced me to his “nerd club”, known as the Belegarth Medieval Combat Society two months after graduation. For the first time ever, people were treating me with kindness instead of bullying me and putting me down. I decided I’d keep coming back and it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Thank you to joining belegarth, I ended up meeting a very wonderful man named Danny, who’s a holistic doctor and owns his own practice. He helped increase my mental health to a point where I didn’t end up needing to pop pills, he helped me lose 60 pounds (which was all the weight I gained in college and then some), he saved me from spraining my ankle two weeks before a karate exam when being a clumsy cat and tripping over myself twice within a few minutes of each other, he helped me learn how to meditate and get more in touch with my whole self, and much more. He also introduced me to his mentee, who is also one of his best friends and also named Danny. This particular Danny ended up introducing me to his entire group of friends, which feel more like my family than my blood family. I was in complete disbelief. When I finally accepted and embraced how much of a nerd I am and was in a safe environment to be myself, I began making real friends for the first time in what felt like my entire life. I also found my home. Because of pain, I was fueled to want to change a negative situation which was taking a toll on my wellbeing. Losing weight and keeping it off has been one of my greatest life accomplishments, especially because I know I have a healthy body frame that can fit into regular sizes in stores. For the first time in a long time, I realized what it was like to feel beautiful. Plus, I received a lot of positive reinforcement from those who noticed my weightloss, as well as my friends.
Part of what triggers me to feel beautiful is to be loved and know I’m loved. Because of how many times I’ve been hurt by loved ones, I’ve always been reluctant towards being vulnerable to people. Shortly before moving out of my parent’s house successfully for good, I met a man who I thought was Mr. Wonderful named Max. He was the first person I truly fell in love with, and we even almost moved in together. Little did I realize, I was in a toxic and abusive relationship with lots of unnecessary drama, which caused me to take the pain and lock it away. A bunch of my friends were waving red flags at me, but someone else who I met in belegarth who is a dear friend of mine named Kree, engaged the sirens to go off to end the relationship. He told me how beautiful I am and how worthy I am of someone to treat me like a queen; I saw my strength and ended the relationship, to affirm how I can do better without being weighed down by drama and being put down all the time.
As soon as I fully realized the beauty I have within myself, I made it a goal to be able to spread love and joy to all, especially with lots of recent occurrences of tragedy. I also realized as soon as I accepted and embraced who I was, told myself I’m beautiful all the time, and maintained a continuous optimistic attitude and zest for life, I was able to create a circle of beauty and share my package of unicorns, rainbows, and smiles with everyone I encounter. The more beauty being passed around, the more we can all sing kumbaya and roast marshmallows with each other in unity. I like to stand on stage and make others feel, smile, and laugh. How do you want to share life’s beauties with the world?
