Big Beautiful Life
I remember being around 11 years old at my friend's house out for a swim, when she told me to stick my feet together and she passed her hand from my ankles to my thighs, where it got stuck. She stood up and told me that her grandmother says you have perfect legs if you can pass your hand all the way to the top.
I remember doing cartwheels at 9 with a mushroom cut outdoors of a relative's house when a construction worker walked by and said, "allo p'tit gas" (hello little boy).
I remember someone commenting on her own double chin and making me realize I had one too. She told me if I should ever have plastic surgery, it should be on my nose.
I also remember the time in the 90s when bellytops were in style and a group of boys laughing at me as I walked away from them, wearing black levis and a grey bellytop... they stood there and laughed with my best friend, who didn't defend me.
I walked around for most of high school sucking my tummy in. I remember my guy friends drooling over one particular girl whose pants perfectly displayed her figure from behind. I'll never have that kind of attention, I thought.
I remember the day I shaved my head.
Fuck it, I thought, I am my own person.
We forget that we're born perfect, and slowly our imperfections are called out by others, or by our own thoughts, and we begin to think there's something wrong with us. Not looking a certain way, not feeling the way other people must, not believing our mother when they say we're beautiful..
Then you wake up one day and realize what a shame all that was. What a shame I didn't realize my beauty, or appreciate my curves more, or feel good inside. It seems like such a waste of time.
I love seeing the beauty in others, or in still life. I saw a skateboarding magazine stuffed with school notes on top of an Element school bag today. That's beautiful. That's real life. Seeing the vulnerability in someone's eyes, when they confess a secret. Watching my nieces and nephews growing up... Loving the grey hairs that are slowly popping up under my dye job, or the way my skin curls next to my mouth when I smile...
We are born perfect, and we are perfect. If you're doubting it, you've forgotten.
That's all she wrote,
Katie
I remember doing cartwheels at 9 with a mushroom cut outdoors of a relative's house when a construction worker walked by and said, "allo p'tit gas" (hello little boy).
I remember someone commenting on her own double chin and making me realize I had one too. She told me if I should ever have plastic surgery, it should be on my nose.
I also remember the time in the 90s when bellytops were in style and a group of boys laughing at me as I walked away from them, wearing black levis and a grey bellytop... they stood there and laughed with my best friend, who didn't defend me.
I walked around for most of high school sucking my tummy in. I remember my guy friends drooling over one particular girl whose pants perfectly displayed her figure from behind. I'll never have that kind of attention, I thought.
I remember the day I shaved my head.
Fuck it, I thought, I am my own person.
We forget that we're born perfect, and slowly our imperfections are called out by others, or by our own thoughts, and we begin to think there's something wrong with us. Not looking a certain way, not feeling the way other people must, not believing our mother when they say we're beautiful..
Then you wake up one day and realize what a shame all that was. What a shame I didn't realize my beauty, or appreciate my curves more, or feel good inside. It seems like such a waste of time.
I love seeing the beauty in others, or in still life. I saw a skateboarding magazine stuffed with school notes on top of an Element school bag today. That's beautiful. That's real life. Seeing the vulnerability in someone's eyes, when they confess a secret. Watching my nieces and nephews growing up... Loving the grey hairs that are slowly popping up under my dye job, or the way my skin curls next to my mouth when I smile...
We are born perfect, and we are perfect. If you're doubting it, you've forgotten.
That's all she wrote,
Katie
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