#pretty mighty

[sophiaisthatgirl]

[pixie-rae]

“I don’t want to be told I’m pretty as I am, I want to live in a world where that’s irrelevant” -Laurie Penny It is astonishing to me how many people comment to females about how they look. Strangers, family, friends, lovers, it seems that, without fail, within the first few sentences of being with someone you hear “You look….(fill in the blank)”. Sometimes it’s a compliment, other times a criticism, but either way it seems like the way you currently look is the most important thing about you. I spent most of my life feeling like I didn’t look “right”. Growing up, I was just different, and because I was born with Hereditary Angioedema, I was always very small and even frail at times. More often than not I heard “You look tired/sick/skinny/bony/bad”. All of my life. And as much as I said I didn’t care what people thought, it really got to me. So when I began treatment for the Angioedema and started to slowly get healthy, the first thing I wanted to do was be beautifully athletic, like all the girls I grew up with. My mom is a badass triathlete, I decided to train for a short distance Tri with her. But here’s the thing…. TRIATHLON WILL NOT MAKE YOU PRETTY. Triathlon will give you scars from bike wrecks, bruises from running, and tattoos that no one understands. Fried hair from chlorine, more freckles than anyone deserves from hours on the trail, deep tan lines that never quite fade, and you don’t even want to know what it does to toenails. You may absolutely kill those skinny jeans now (two sizes larger, thanks to your new hamstrings and glutes), but getting them on is harder than the last two days training combined and your arms are so tired. The longer the distance, the more muscle you need, and when did my midsection get that wide? Your arms get big, your butt even so much bigger. You stop wearing heels because, hell, I don’t need those to stomp on the world, I can do that barefoot. You gain 15 pounds, cut 18 inches off your hair, and forget what nail polish even is because you never have all 10 toenails at once. You will be dirty, sweaty, sunburned, and have the hairstyle of “I swam then put on a bike helmet” a lot of the time. Triathlon is not a pretty sport, not the training or the competition, and it forces you to let go of that supposed measure of your worth. No amount of masks or facades or meeting societal expectations will bring you to the finish, only your true self will take you there. So you terrorize your hair and your skin, you live in gym clothes or pajama pants, get another tattoo that no one understands, and wear nothing but tennis shoes. And one day it dawns on you as you’re training for your second Ironman race… You don’t care. In the countless hours you’ve spent alone with yourself out on the trail you have learned who you are, intimately and with brutal honesty. You know your worth as a fellow human. What you look like is so far down on the list of things that actually do really matter that you barely even remember it. So, no, triathlon will not make you pretty. What it will make you is fierce, brave, strong, genuine, healthy, empathetic, true, focused, passionate, driven, willing, happy, assured, radiant, independent, and honest.