I have gotten really good at hiding my flaws.
Clothes that hide my muffin top.
Concealing the tiny red dots of skin that appear on my face.
Dark nail polish so I look more put together.
Sweaters and pants on the days I am too drained to shave.
Dry shampoo, dry shampoo, do not let that hair look greasy.
Add huge earrings to take away the focus from dark bags under my eyes.
Bringing powder with me wherever I go just in case my face screams of oil.
I thought I had mastered the art of airbrushing my flaws away each day.
Yet people still have spoken of my flaws. As if I had no idea they were there. I lay in the bathtub rubbing the dirt off of every crease and creves on my body. Laying there with a gallon of lotion and pimple cream on my face. I look at my phone and immediately get scared at the freakish looking person appearing in my reflection. But that monster staring at me, is myself. That is when I am not hiding anything. It is all out there.
One night i decided to take a picture. Of me. In my most authenic-looking self. I found beauty. My whole life I thought beauty was perfection. When I was overlooking the entire idea that imperfection is beauty. Beautifully imperfect. I looked at the picture I had taken. Each pink spot of pimple cream. Each eyelash not as dark and as long as they were that morning when layered with mascara. Purely me.
It is so beyond hard to be okay with imperfections. We always find a way to hide them. But no one can be beautiful without being imperfect. Being perfect is physically impossible. We all must learn to love our imperfections because just like everything living, we must grow. We must have speckles of dirt in order to turn into a beautiful rose.
So I challenge you to start loving your imperfections. Take pictures of them. Share them. Keep them on your phone and look at them as if you are looking at a painting. Stare. Take it all in. Find the beauty. Then let it be. You cannot change them, you just have to live with them. Which can be so beautiful to embrace.
xoxo
Sky