I am not "beautiful" and that's ok.

It's Thursday and it is time to link up with Amber and Neely for one of the last It's Ok Thursdays.  (Tears!)


This isn't going to be a normal "It's Ok" and I apologize to Neely and Amber for that.  I will try to keep the positivity in the post, I promise!  

When this story about  Abercrombie and Fitch  started showing up on my Facebook yesterday I was sad but busy at work so my immediate reaction was: What a Jerk. Later in the afternoon my friend Rachel wrote a blog about her BATTLE and how this story effected her.  She and I texted last night for a while about this and the more I talked to her, the more sad I became with the message these things send and the more I started to experience my own insecurites.  Thin and Beautiful are not the same thing and it is not ok that some people just don't get how hurtful and destructive these messages are or they don't care.  I have three neices who are just amazing and beautiful but I have cried at the thought that any one of them would ever hate herself as much as I have hated myself in the past for not living up to some random definition of beautiful.  I have been truly sad thinking that they may look in the mirror and tear themselves apart the way I have to stop myself from doing on a daily basis. DAILY!




The reality is that there are messages like this every single day to every person who doesn't look perfect which, by the way, is absolutely everyone. I have been honest about my struggles with not only weight loss and compulsive eating but bulimia. Well, I have been mostly honest. I promise you that nobody has been harder on me than me and the last thing I want or need to hear is some kind of smarmy CEO attack me or any woman for not meeting his definition of beautiful.

My weight over the years has fluctuated between a size 6 at my smallest (12 years ago) and a 26 at my largest 6 years ago (Here is my first blog on this battle and some before pictures.).  Learning to be happy and love myself has been the hardest battle and it is one that I have just recently won. Today I am a 14 but I am trying to get back to a healthy for me, size 10.

This is about being healthy without becoming completely obsessed with diet and excercise and falling in to a serious case of Bulimerexia, for me.  Plus, I just don't need the stress. When I am stressed I binge-eat. When I binge, I purge. It's not glamorous or sexy to hate or abuse your body. The amount of pain I have suffered over the years from forcing my body to expel food in a number of ways from laxative abuse to your typical definition of purging has and will effect me forever.  My esophogus is torn.  My teeth and gums suffer from acid erosion and I have a bad knee and back from carrying around excess weight. Mentally, it is worse. It's not ok to feel like the world would be a better place without you because you are repulsive.It isn't okay to look at every body part as a problem instead of seeing the beauty you have within and without.  It's a very difficult subject but a message has to be sent to men and women everywhere that you are perfect just as you are and you can change what can be improved, within reason, but chasing an unrealistic image is not healthy.

This is me

It has been a struggle to accept myself.  There are times when I look pretty.  There are times when I look nasty and there are times when I look normal.  I tried to pull photos out that I thought reflected all of those times....plus silly because silly is by far, the real me.  I am not perfect and according the CEO of Abercrombin and Fitch, I am not beautiful.  I lose sleep about a lot of things but I am never going to lose sleep about what some 68 year old CEO thinks about my body.  I will lose sleep because of what I think about it.  I may lose sleep worrying about what the guy I am seeing thinks about it.  Ok, I will lose sleep about what he thinks. Whenever the men I have dated have told me I was beautiful or sexy, I thought they were either just being nice, blind, or trying to score.   There are very few photos of me until the last two years or so because I hated myself and I hated the way I look.  My sweet friend Rachel ,who I mention a lot, has made me take photos and I have finally learned to accept myself and the blog has made me actually start to love myself.  That, my friends, means I am ok!

Here is what else is ok:

*It's totally ok that I have been spending my lunch hour hiking in the park!



*It's ok that my bell collection is in serious need of attention....and a expansion shelf!




If you think this is insane you should see the bells in my kitchen and and the extra ones that come out at Christmas only.  I have been collecting them since I was 6 so some of these are old.
*It's ok that lately I can't sleep without Ambien, can't breath without Singular and sometime Zyrtec and may need an occasional daily happy pill to stay on track.  I know myself well enough to get help when I need it.
*It's ok that I was bugging my friend Chance about needing a new camera. He is an amazing photographer and a pretty smart camera guy.
*It's ok that Chance knows me so well he was suggesting a few cameras but managed to totally sell me on the one that has Wifi, is waterproof, and may be exactly perfect to carry with me on the bike trail.
*It's ok that I realized yesterday if I book the cruise I am planning....I will, in fact, be taking a cruise on the Love Boat.  Well, the Princess Cruise line anyway.  I will know within the next week or two if that trip to Alaska happens this year or I have to go to somewhere tropical instead.  Really hoping Alaska works out.

That's what's ok with me...and a little bit of over-sharing too.  Happy Thursday!


 

Simply,
Laura
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