I Don't Love Myself (Yet)

   I don't like myself very much. I think my hips are too big. I hate the little layer of fat over my stomach. I dislike the stretch marks and all the little scars covering my body. I don't care for my big eyes, I don't like my natural hair color, I think I should do better, in school, at home, in the world, I should be making a name for myself. I don't like the way I talk, the way I walk, the way I say my own name. The way I breathe even annoys me, why do I feel the need to sigh so often? I hate my smile, I hate that I can't draw, I despise the fact that I'm so insecure...
    And can you blame me? My whole life I've been told I'm not good enough. By commercials, by magazines, by bullies and people who didn't believe in it. Because why should I make it, why should I like myself when there's nothing special about me? The models in the magazines are skinnier and prettier, the women in the commercials wake up smiling, with perfect makeup and in a cleaned bedroom every time I see them. Why should I believe I'm beautiful, kind and smart, when my whole life people have told me different?
   But I'm trying. Every day I'm fighting to like myself a little bit more. Maybe my nose isn't actually that big. Maybe my hips are actually beautiful. Maybe, just maybe, I could like myself some day. But just when I'm about to feel better, someone else takes a jab at my view of myself.
   I see perfect people around me all the time. The amazing mother of two, at the young age of twentytwo years old, who gets up and takes care of her children and her husband every day, when I can barely take care of myself. The people who, judging from their Instagram pictures, seem to have a professional photographer following them around constantly. The twentyfive year old who has her own business. The travel blogger, who sees all the corners of the world, while I sit on my couch wondering why I'm not there yet. Every day I ask myself why I'm not there yet. Why is my life not amazing yet? What did I do wrong, why don't I have what they do?
   And still, I try. I look in the mirror and try to tell myself that my waist is pretty and skinny enough, that my length is cute despite me not having long, slender legs, that my haircolor is charming because it's different colors in every light. I look at my talents and try to see them as good. I love baking, and I'm good at it. I read at an amazing speed, and I type even faster. I'm amazing at organizing. I look at my work and try to focus on the improvements I've made. I spend more time on school work, I write longer blogposts, write better texts, edit videos in more interesting ways. I go back and forth between believing that I'm the most amazing thing on Earth and the worst thing to ever happen to humanity. There's still a long way to go. Because I still have a very hard time believing that I'm beautiful. That to someone, I'm enough. That one day, I could consider myself adequate.
   But there's a long way to go, still. Because undoing 20 years of believing that you're not good enough doesn't just go away. It's something that's stuck so deep inside your mind, that you have a hard time trusting people who call you beautiful. Because doubting yourself is not a short term thing, and if you're not careful, it might just stick with you for life. You might never again be free.
   And slowly but surely, I do like myself more. I have days when I no longer believe I'm fat and stupid. I have days when I can look at myself in the mirror without wearing makeup, and not hating what I see. I more and more often think about my exterior as looking good, both when it comes to my clothes, and myself. It takes time, but I'm starting to believe I have talents, that I'm smart, that I have things that I'm actually very good at.
   There's still a long way to go, until I can love myself. There's a lot to work through. But slowly, inching towards my goal of accepting myself, I start to realize that I might actually be able to do it. Some day, I might actually like myself, even if it's a day very far into the future. I might like myself, and to me, that's nothing short of a miracle.
   For now though, I still have to fight. No matter how scared I am to take up the fight when I wake up in the morning, because despite having the support of amazing people, I have to fight alone. Because I alone can fight my demons. No one else can defeat the darkness that's clouding my life, and some days, I will be punched until I lay on the floor. Some days I will stand up and ask "is that all you got?" and knock the darkness onto it's ass. And now, I can see those days becoming more and more frequent.
   If you're in a place where you can't appreciate yourself, fight. Get up every day and fight with everything you've got. Because trust me, as someone who fights every day: it does get better. It got better for me, and it will get better for you. It will get better. But you have to fight for it, because nothing worth having comes easy.