I am dedicating this blog to myself and my girls. Because I had read some pretty powerful and inspirational words, pondered about it, and decided to share...
I read a mother's blog that I read regularly and she had a post from another lady's blog that was truly inspirational to me. I thought I would repost her blog as written while adding my own story to it. I love it so much and I hope someday I will be able to read it to my daughter in seeing how this is the true reason I ever started this blog in the first place. Documenting her life, our life as a family. Confidence is something that I've always thought I had growing up but never really truly accepted to an extent, especially being overweight the majority of my life. So:
What do I wish I could tell my 13-year old self?
To Thine Own Self Be True.
I am a woman. Someone's daughter. A Mother. A lady, a girl, a female, a what-have-you, but I join the other millions of double-x chromosomed beings in this amazing place called womanhood. And while I have walked years on this NON Kotex-buying (because of my PCOS), perfume-sampling, leg-shaving, tear-jerking, nail-painting, hair-dyeing, love-falling, soul-satisfying path, it wasn't until I looked into my beautiful baby girl's eyes for the very first time that I obtain the importance of those powerful words. The old saying goes: You always want to give your children what you never had. Well, I hope that instilling in my girls confidence and not putting them down in any manner or form will make them grow up to be loving, caring, well-rounded women, wives, mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers some day.
It's one thing to find yourself, to know yourself, to love yourself and dwell confidently as a woman in a world that can seem to gnaw at your perceptions with expectations to be smarter, prettier, richer, funnier, skinnier, faster, better, different from any marvelous thing you already are.
But, how will I raise my girls to know this? How will I teach them to believe that they are as amazing as I know them to be?
I wish I could have known what I know now back then. When I didn't listen to my parents and rebelled ever second they were throwing rules in my face. When I listened to rap music and ran around with the wrong crowd at a certain point in my life. When I had raging hormones and when I decided to party because I thought it was the cool thing to do and everybody I hung around was doing it. When I had friends come and go from my life because of stupid reasons and hurt feelings over actions and words. When I hear how what a failure I am because of not choosing to pursue a career that would make me a lot of money, but deciding to be a stay-at-home mom instead while living on a budget instead of having that house of my dreams and that car that would impress others instead of myself. That marrying a man nine years my senior who already had a lil' girl that comes from a troubled home with her mom and decide to embrace the role as step mom would be extremely challenging but prove to be a pivotal choice in my life for the better because he is an amazing, humble, hard-working husband and extremely hands-on, loving father, and truly my best friend.
I wish I would have known that Confidence is Beautiful.
I wish I could take that girl I was and tell her from my grown-up self...
Be yourself. You will stand out. I promise. Just be you.
Now in my thirties, through both the joys and hardships of my life (and let me tell ya there were many of them), I feel I am finally arriving to the very comfortable place of knowing myself, accepting myself, and celebrating the intricate infrastructure of assets and flaws, talents and fears, strengths and struggles. I own them and revere them.
The women I think as most beautiful in life are always, always...the confident ones. And the traits I remember about my favorite people are never their waistline or their face symmetrics, how well they did in school or how much money their parents made. No, it's their infectious laughter. The way they scrunch up their nose when they smile. The way they freely dance, run to hold a baby, sing off-tune, compliment others, accept a compliment, look for beauty and believe in who they are without any apology. The way they proudly, beautifully swim against the current.
Don't quite fit in? Fantastic. Not like everyone else? Even better. Curves? Embrace them. Freckles? Love them. Laugh lines? Rock them. Take everything you are--your background, your family, your history, your story, your community, your style, your job, your dreams, your talents, your body, your humor, your sorrow, your joys and make them yours. Be ashamed of nothing. Make the most of what you have and Girl, make it look good...because you can.
And when you doubt yourself, when you feel unsure, let these words fuel you: To Thine Own Self Be True.
To Thine Own Self Be True.
To Thine Own Self Be True.
...and no one can ever take that away from you.
Are there days ahead where I console the tears of my teenage girl because someone made fun of her or will I watch her try to be someone else while she figures it all out? I'm sure there are, and that kills me. But I will show them the way. I will celebrate their strengths and help them use their struggles to balance it all out, to learn something new, to feel the victory that comes when you conquer hardship, when you discover a little more amazingness about yourself.
Not caring what people think is difficult and, as one who just wants everyone to be happy, I struggle sometimes with the choices I make and what people will think of them. But I am always happier when, in a moment of doubt, I return to that peaceful, comfortable place of To Thine Own Self Be True.
What I'm really trying to say here is, 13-Year-Old-Self, you have no idea how fabulous you are. But you are. Breathe it in. And let it out. You are fabulous. And when you are true to yourself, you will grow. No, you will soar.
I think women are amazing. We can thrust living beings out of our bodies in one grimacing push or go through an invasive operation to bring life into this world. That, in itself, is impressive. But we have to learn to celebrate our beautiful differences...for ourselves, for our children.
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