The day I started loving myself

The gravel under my feet and the wind in my hair felt so relaxing and calm. It felt like home. The trees were a bright green and the sky was a clear blue. The whole world felt beautiful today. The birds who’s chirping was a noise a year ago, now sounded like a melodious song; the morning sunshine which felt like lasers to my skin, now felt like a beautiful blanket. Cliché, I know, but it is exactly how I’m feeling right now; a cliché in a land ruled by unclichéd. The scars have faded away and the nightmare of a life has become calm. A year has changed a lot.

I still remember looking at myself in the mirror and feeling pathetic on seeing rolls on my stomach, the fat on my face and the huge thighs. The feeling of embarrassment would take over me whenever I would have to walk down the corridor in school or whenever I would have to go in front of the class to present something. The snickers, the laughs and the stares were enough for me to hurt myself. “Why are you so fat?! Why can’t you just loose a little weight?!” I would shout at my mirror and cut myself to punish; to punish myself for being me.

As the time passed by, the scars got deeper and the hatred for myself got stronger. I couldn’t look at myself nor could I stand the thought of being in this body forever. But this one day, I went to shop at the grocery store and while waiting in line to pay for the grocery, I saw this old lady who looked like she needed help with the grocery. So I went ahead and helped her put the bags in her car and just as soon as I turned my back, she held my hand and said,” thank you so much for helping me. Very few beautiful people like you are left in this world.” That one line changed my life forever.

That day I felt something which I had never really experienced in a long time. That day I felt beautiful and confident in the way I was; that day I realised that beauty wasn’t only the outside of the perfect face, it was inside the heart too. That day I started the process of loving myself and that people’s opinions don’t matter.

This is all I wanted in my life, I just wanted to feel beautiful. Little did I know that I would learn to feel beautiful in the body that I was given and not the one society made me think I was supposed to force myself into.