I recently went on a trip out of the country to visit family. Before I left I decided that every day of the trip I was going to dress nice and presentable with full hair and makeup, instead of my usual oversized t-shirt and unkempt hair/bare face look. I actually enjoyed dressing myself everyday. I felt more adult and I actually enjoy looking at the person that was staring back at me in the mirror. This year I decided that I needed to start taking more pictures of myself. Unfortunately I slipped up on that promise because I didn’t take many pictures of myself on my trip (mostly because there wasn’t that many great photo ops without looking like a complete tourist). Anyways since coming back from that trip, I’ve been feeling different. I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s almost like I have more confidence? This summer I really started to test the waters more with my confidence. Instead of hiding my body underneath an oversized t-shirt I worn a crop top out to a bar?! Never in a million years would I do that a year ago. I can’t confidently say that I rocked that crop top but I didn’t look horrendous and I didn’t feel like vomiting every time I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. I have started to push my envelope more and more each day, carefully trying to find the perfect balance between pushing myself and coddling myself. The improvement in my self esteem has been minimal but noticeable. When I try something on that I don’t look 100% in I don’t complete destroy myself. I either remind myself that I am still a work in progress or I try on a larger size. I have really tried to limit that amount of time I stare at myself in the mirror and look for imperfections. Honestly there is no point in looking at myself for so long because I am either reminded of things that I am working on or I start to see things that aren’t even there. I want to applaud myself for a recent breakthrough. I went to a concert that was at a beach, so I dressed accordingly with a bathing suit top and shorts. Now this might sound like a normal festival outfit, but what makes this time different is that I WASN’T wearing nice flowy, high waisted shorts that cover a good majority of my stomach like I usually do. This time I was wearing regular length shorts, but I will say they did have an elastic waist band but only because denim shorts at this venue would of been impractical (but I did consider wearing denim shorts! so it’s the thought that counts). Naturally my friends wanted to take pictures. Almost instinctively the word “pictures” made me feel queasy and I was hit with a pang of self consciousness. I decided to take pictures anyway, because I already had the perfect caption for my instagram. I’m not going to lie I don’t look great in all of the photos. You can see my chunks and rolls, but the thing is I didn’t tear myself an new one. I didn’t zoom in on every insecurity and stare at it until I started crying. Because what is the fucking point of doing that? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. After looking at the array of photos, I daringly picked the photo I felt beamed the most positivity, slapped on a nice filter and cute caption and nervously uploaded it to Instagram. It’s not my best picture but it is certainly not my worst. I try not to stare at it too long because I don’t want insecurities to form. I got an average number of likes on it, I didn’t get any comments telling me how perfect or great I look which is fine because I know I don’t and that’s ok. The biggest thing that this picture shows is that I’m happy and there is a sparkle of confidence, something that has been missing from my photos for a while. I just want to be happy and radiate positivity, and lately I have been feeling that and I just feel a warm, overwhelming happiness. I know I say this a lot, but I truly feel that this school year is going to be so different, so much better. It doesn’t have to be January 1 for one to restart and have a great year. My goal this year is to shine with confidence whether or not I am at my goal weight or not. Because my weight should have an influence on my happiness.