$30 Project

I’ve brainstormed a million different ways to try and discuss this, but none of my drafts have been coming out quite right. And I haven’t quite pinpointed why I feel like it’s important for me to try and mention it either. Maybe because it’s such a confusing feeling, it’s so tedious and stupid, that if I write it down… it’ll seem that much more ridiculous.

So here goes. 

I haven’t been feeling very pretty lately. I’m not sure how else to put it.

That word, “pretty,” haunted me for a lot of my teenage years and continuing to bother me until my mid-20s or so. I thought about it all the time. If I could just figure out a way to be “pretty” somehow. Everything would be better! And even though it took a while, as is the case with so much that drives me a bit crazy, I got so bored with the same meddlesome thoughts running through my head, so exhausted of the tiresome loop that my self-doubt created, that eventually I wore myself out. 

And while I’m not disillusioned about my looks, I don’t think that I’ve been given an unfair shake either. Life’s done okay by me. I came to the conclusion that a little less complaining and a little more enjoying would probably be best. 

But it’s weird, you know? How that tiny, lingering weed of insecurity seems to grow back every once in a while. It’s rooted fairly deep. 

For whatever reason, the last thing that I’ve wanted to do the last couple of weeks is step in front of a camera and then edit images of myself and then post them in a public place. My mind has tricked itself into thinking that I’m sort of a hideous hosebeast and that’s pretty much the last thing that I have any business doing. I should take my intermittent break-outs and my scaly skin and my weird haircut and go hide out in a place where mirrors don’t exist.

But my image is my content. And this Tumblr has been good to me. In a lot of ways, it’s been good because of the very complaints that I am posting right now. It’s probably better to suck it up and realize that I’ll never truly be happy with myself and push through these emotions, than allow myself to sink into a pit of self-pity. Even if that means that my outfits aren’t as on point, if I’m making a few weird, scrunchy faces at the camera that look like I am trying to smile, but really mean, “DEAR GOD, I AM HORRIFYING. LOOK AWAY.” 

It’s such an insanely silly problem and I’ll probably never find a way to be entirely free from it either, which makes me insanely disappointed. I vacillate between thinking that I’m being too hard on myself or not tough enough.

In the meantime, I just bought a Clarisonic. I’ll let you know how it goes.