Beauty

A friend of mine once told me that I would look nicer if I "lost a little bit of weight and (was) a little fairer". That night I came home and cried for a few hours. There are days when I look at myself in the mirror and I wonder, did I get a new zit, did I gain an extra bit of fat right here. I look under my eyes and I see the eye-bags, the dark circles. I see the little flaws that nobody would care about. Yet I do it. I wear makeup to make myself feel prettier, because my entire life I've been told that fairer skin was prettier. Having my eyes look a certain way would make me more attractive. Wearing a certain shade of lipstick made me look like a "slut". People have issues when I wear make up and when I don't wear make up. There is no pleasing everybody. There's no way that I can just walk out of the house and not be judged for how I look.

I don't always put an effort into what I wear, but when I do, I do it for myself, not because I want you to think I look attractive in photos or in real life. I do it because I feel like when I dress up, I meet the beauty standards society has taught me. I do it because I want to feel pretty. And even though it's for myself, I  find myself conforming to society's expectations of me. I haven't yet learnt to accept my body for what it looks like. I always find myself looking at the fatter parts of my body and feeling conscious about it.

I don't want to nitpick on every single part of me. I want to learn to accept my body for what it is. I don't want to live in a world where I am judged every single day for not meeting your standards of beauty. I want to start living in a world, where the only standard of beauty I am held up to, is my own!