Never enough: growing up airbrushed
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I recently found this headshot from when I was 16 years old.
The blue pen marks indicate the parts of me that should be airbrushed.
That's the world I grew up in.
Even at 16, I had to be fixed, airbrushed and prettied up. I was never quite good enough as I was.
Now, when I look back at that time, I see a girl who had glowing skin and the ability to exist solely on Doritos while still having a thigh gap.
At 35, that thigh gap is long gone, but you know what I do have now?
- gray hair (because I'm lucky to get older and wiser and experience life)
- crow's feet (because I'm lucky to be able to laugh a lot)
- a little puffy roll where my abs should be (because I was lucky to go to Italy last month and eat gelato every day)
I'm done listening to a world that tells me that I should dye my hair and wear concealer and lose three pounds because that's the weight that Jennifer Aniston prefers to be.
The Blue Pen People have made us all insecure about those things, but for some reason we've accepted that. And now, ridiculously, we've picked up that blue pen and are scribbling all over ourselves and others, highlighting whatever physical attributes we deem to be "wrong."
There is so much negativity already in the world, why are we contributing by hating ourselves?
So, women (and men) of the world -- what would happen if we came together and collectively decided that we just don't care about the thigh gap? Or laugh lines? Or inadequate lashes?
What if we stopped judging other women, and ourselves, by silly criteria that have nothing to do with health or happiness? What if we just ended it? What if we decided to focus that energy on important, productive things that actually mattered? Let's stop cursing the darkness under our eyes, and let's light a candle.
It's easy to think that we have all the time in the world and that sometime tomorrow or next year we will learn to be kind and love our hips.
But life is precious -- and we just don't have time for this blue pen bullshit.
Enough is enough.
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