a lesson in technology & loving yourself at 20-something
It’s impossible to sit down with the internet on your lap and not get distracted. So today while looking for a job, I somehow found myself scrolling through my old photobucket account. There’s an explanation to be given here because at one point in time you couldn’t take a photo with your phone and post it on whatever social media site you wanted to. A lot of the time, you took pictures with an actual camera with a thing called film. You had to get these pictures developed and then scan them in, and then you had to use a site like photobucket to make the picture small enough to post on old-school social media, like myspace. Even with the developing and scanning out of the way.. I was lucky enough to have the tiniest digital camera that I took with me EVERYWHERE, I had to upload these photos to photobucket to get an url to then post them on my livejournal. Ok, another explanation.. Livejournal was like the diary you kept in your awkward angsty years, plus enough html knowledge to make your text bold, plus an url photobucket would provide so you could post selfies that you took with a camera instead of your forward-facing camera on your iPhone.
My old photobucket account consists of myspace angle selfies, graduation pictures, senior pictures, and random pictures from sleepovers and being really cool. And besides the regret that I’d like to call my eyebrows, which I over-plucked consistently through high school, I found myself remembering that double zero bod I had. The spaghetti strap tops with beading on the top. The under-shirt cami that was a staple of the 2000′s, the skirts, the polos, the purse that matched the shoes, the skinny arms, the long long hair, the fake n bake skin. A decade ago I was a board. I didn’t have fat on my body. I didn’t have the slightest curve. I ate whatever I wanted. Looking through those pictures I felt really.. Fat. I didn’t feel older or more like a woman, I felt HUGE. That’s not the normal reaction to old photos. The normal reaction is, WOW I was such a baby back then! The normal reaction is, I’m SO glad I’m not a teenager anymore.
Full disclosure: I grew up in a time where skinny was the ideal. Now it’s about being strong and/or loving your curves, but it’s hard for me to accept that. It’s not what I’m used to looking up to. I have curves now, I look my age now instead of like a teenager. It’s a good thing to not look 16 anymore, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss being a double zero. There’s a novelty that comes with being petite and skinny, you’re different and automatically pretty. Once you have some meat on your bones, it’s different. I know that I’m completely wrong. I know that I’m not actually fat. But feeling that way is a very real thing. It’s also a very real thing that I’m not currently doing anything to be skinny. I’m not dieting or exercising. I eat pizza, often. I take full responsibility for letting myself get to this point. It does seem ridiculous, but beauty isn’t standardized. Feeling good about yourself isn’t totally in line with what society thinks is good. Big butts are cool now, but when I was shaping my own idea of what cool is, they weren’t. Loving yourself is mostly about learning to grow and change your perceptions as you age. I’m not about to accept a stomach that is definitely not worthy of a crop top and say I’m beautiful just the way I am, but I do need to understand that double zero isn’t attainable/possible/beautiful for me anymore.
Moving to Los Angeles didn’t mean I automatically fell into some fitness fad the way I thought it would. My boyfriend works out and I don’t even think about doing a sit-up or anything. It’s never been anything I thought about doing, but suddenly I can’t eat whatever I want and I can feel the weight gain in my gut and in other places. It’s a weird thing to have to accept. I’ll never have that double zero bod again. But the thing is, it’s ok. There are diets out there that make sense and work, but like.. I really enjoy eating cheese. I really like sweets. I’m not going to have tea for dinner. I’m not going to suddenly want to work out. I do need to be healthy, I do need to make an effort, and even though I may never love exercising.. I need to get over that. Loving yourself isn’t just about thinking you’re beautiful. Loving yourself is about doing what you need to do to take care of yourself. And I’ll admit that I haven’t done a good job. I haven’t done a good job at all. And it’s time to start.
