11/07/2024
Here’s a late night story for you—funny, a little sad, and maybe just a bit ✨Surrey✨
When I was young, I thought my mom and stepmom were the most beautiful women in the world. I looked at them in awe, hoping I’d grow up to be even a fraction as beautiful. I’d gaze at magazines, watch movies, and, when it came time to blow out birthday candles, I wished for beauty.
But childhood wasn’t always kind. I was teased for my freckles, my wild white hair, my crooked teeth. In third grade, I went to a fine arts school in Surrey, where a boy—a few grades older, crooked teeth of his own, and freckled to boot —bullied me.
We went to the same after-school program, and he often taunted me with words I’d already told myself. His one eye was fake, just like my papas from a freak mechanic accident. My papa showed me how he took his eye out as a joke on a regular basis.
One day, he was in my face, calling me names, making fun of my freckles—everything I already feared about myself. And so I did what any scrappy third grader might do. I punched him, right in the mouth, jumped on him and popped his fake eye right out, and I flicked it across the court yard.
Through high school, I buried myself in makeup, and as a young adult, I piled it on even more, waiting to feel beautiful.
Then one day, I was 25, pregnant, swollen, 60 pounds heavier, without a stitch of makeup. I caught myself in the mirror, and there she was—beautiful, powerful, whole.
The same girl, the same freckles, finally whole.
I wish I could go back and tell that little girl it was all within her all along. Years of wishing and all it took was loving her exactly as she was. Inside and outside.
So let this be a little message to you to 1) don’t bully and 2) your beautiful
Andalsodontmesswithme
I hope you enjoyed this short story of childhood trauma and read it in my sarcastic voice.
Please note the boy was fine, and had to apologize to me and I think we even became friends.
