the ugly girl

When you have been the ugly girl

the outsider girl

the awkward girl

the not invited to the party girl

the sitting alone in the cafeteria girl,

you have something that 

the girls and boys who fit in 

all their lives 

will never have.

You know how to be alone, 

and absolutely love it

because you were so isolated, 

that you were forced to love yourself.

You can walk into a room full of people 

and not care about what any of them think

because you know it can’t possibly be worse 

than what you’ve already been told to your face.

There are other days though, 

where you are alone, 

and you absolutely hate it

because the only thing that you can think about is 

what purpose there could possibly be 

for anyone to ever be so cruel to you.

You walk into a room full of people 

and get hit with waves of anxiety and horror

because you imagine that you can hear what they are all thinking 

about you and your body and your face and your hair

and the words feel like metal scraping the inside of your body.

There is so much 

that you experience 

in you own mind, 

that you don’t think anyone 

will ever understand

today, you are a beautiful woman, 

and no one you know today 

thinks of you as the ugly girl that you believe you are.

And you wish you could see you how they must see you.

They have a clean slate, yours has been dirtied by name calling and teasing.

You can’t see yourself without it

and they can’t see you with it.

No one will ever keep the ugly girl alive like you do

and no one can ever let her go like you should.

Sad and Scared

I was in the 3rd grade when I was called anorexic for the first time. I lived with insecurities about myself and about my body for all those years. I told myself the story that my body was wrong for this world, that I was wrong for this world, but still I kept living in it. I was a strong little girl. 

I have a vague memory of someone at school saying something about my voice being so high pitched. My voice was “annoying” to this person and they weren’t afraid to let me know. That was when I couldn’t take it anymore. I was okay with living with the idea that my body was horrible and bothered everyone around me, but my voice too? That was too much for me. It was later that day when I was alone in my room that I found myself staring at a bottle of nail polish remover, wondering if I would feel any better if I drank it. I wanted to feel my throat burn and then I wanted to die. 

Instead of taking action towards that plan, I told my mother about my thoughts. The best thing she knew to do was to bring me to a therapist.

“Honey, if you would have taken a drink of nail polish remover, you wouldn’t have died, you would have seriously injured your throat and you would have had to live with that for the rest of your life,” the therapist said to me. What was her intention in being so logical about this? I had never in my life felt so inadequate. I was in immense emotional pain, pain that no young girl should ever face, and my therapist was telling me that the one thing I felt like doing to ease that pain would have just made things worse. At that moment, I decided to stop trusting myself.

I spent the remaining time in therapy daydreaming about jumping off the end of the ledge I could see from the office window. I was 13 years old at the time.

I wonder if this extreme idea of escape wasn’t a mental illness, but rather communication from my soul saying, “get out. Now.” I always wanted to get out, of life.

Most days after school, I would sit in my closet with the door closed. It was there that I cried, drew, and journaled. It was there that I felt like I could release all of my emotions. It was there, where everything felt okay, even when I was sad and scared.

Growing Pains (Part One)

I’ve never wanted much from this life. Even before I had my spiritual awakening, I never had much interest in brand name things or massive homes. I remember being a teenager, shopping for clothes with my mom and she was willing to buy me whatever clothes I wanted, but I would rather have the cheap and simple clothes. Growing up, my family wasn’t extremely wealthy, but my parents were able to provide my brother and I what we wanted and needed.

My college was paid for by my parents. I was expected to climb the corporate ladder and live an abundant, successful life. My parents struggled to pay for their own schooling and never graduated from undergrad, they did whatever they could to make sure that I didn’t face the same challenge. They believed that if they had been able to obtain that college degree, that their lives would have been so much easier.

My existence shattered that belief for them, among many others. To them, my life looks challenging and unfavorable. My mom has even gone as far to say that this part of my life a rock bottom. She tells the whole family about it, saying things like “at least my son is doing well right now and I can focus on that positive.”

The weird part of it all is that I don’t think this is a rock bottom, I feel so good about where I am at. I’ll explain.

After college, I decided that instead of selling my soul to the corporate world and chaining myself to a desk, that I would create my own career. I attended a seminar and signed up for a business program with no idea what my business would be or how things would go. I grew a lot through the program that I was doing, even though I wasn’t having much financial success. With the lack of financial success, I began to pray about what I should do. The next day, I got a call from Crunch Fitness and they asked if I could interview for an open personal training position. I ended up getting the job, and I loved it. I worked with so many amazing clients and I felt so fulfilled to watch them reach their goals. The job was fun too.

Over time, I started to fall in love with helping people with mindset, emotional health, and creating a spiritual practice, more than I was loving giving my clients meal plans and workout schedules. I also had reached a year with the company and felt badly about not doing much to work towards my dream of having my own business. With the intention of possibly branching out into a different field, I invested in a meditation and breathwork teacher program and received a certificate. I started working one on one with clients online and I was really enjoying myself. I hired a business coach and started getting back to my original goals that I had before I got this personal training job.

When I felt financially stable, I decided to quit my job at the gym. This brought my parents into a panic. It’s hard to watch the choices that liberate and excite you cause harm to others, especially when it is people that you really care about. I couldn’t take the energy I was getting from them. It was overwhelming and frustrating. I felt like they were waiting for everything to fall apart. They constantly asked me how many clients I had, and maybe they were truly curious, but to me, it felt like they had been worried for hours and desperately needed to know. I desperately needed space from them.

I also pushed myself away from my business coach. I stopped coming to our calls and I wasn’t too responsive when we messaged. I thought it would be a good idea to travel more, to gain independence, and learn more about myself. I wanted to be in new environments with new people. As soon as my lease on my apartment ended, I booked a one way ticket to Mexico.

My plan was to travel for months, maybe even a year on my own. My mom hated that idea. She said I needed to be with someone, that it wouldn’t be safe. I let that get in my head. I wished that when I presented my plans and ideas to my parents that they could be met with support.

In December, a month before my Mexico trip, I met someone. Looking back, I wish I would’ve had more focus, but at this point I was heading way off of the path I had set for myself. I was telling myself stories that no one believed in me, just because my mom didn’t. Having this man in my life was a distraction from everything that was hurting deep inside me. Because my inner child was in such a wounded state, this man and I bonded very quickly. We even talked about getting married after just a week of knowing each other. He became my escape from the world. I stopped working out. I stopped meditating. I stopped working on my business all together. We also literally escaped, because in January, we went to Mexico and left everything behind.

To be continued in my next post…