I wonder what it would be like to be allowed to feel beautiful.

I wonder what it would be like to be allowed to not feign humility; to not have to believe that we are not wonderful enough to love ourselves.

I wonder what it would be like to feel lovely, and to be allowed to have confidence in how I am loved by the one who matters.

It seems as if everyone’s ideal of me is in me not being me: twenty pounds lighter, four inches longer–curvier with less in the cheeks, more definition of the jaw. It seems as if everyone’s ideal of me was the frail, lithe girl that existed within the confines of her own depression. The me that fought to eat because I fought to understand why I would want to sustain an existence I did not want; a body I no longer wished to house.

It seems as if everyone’s ideal of me turned into my ideal of me; when all I had ever wanted in my life was just to be happy. To be kind. To be understanding. To want to live.

I think the reality is that I would rather be beautiful in the heart and healthy in the soul. To allow myself to no longer worry about if I was beautiful to anyone else except me.

I think the reality is that it’s all unbelievably bullshit: the idea that I am supposed to exist for anyone other than me.

So why

is it so hard to stop?