Day 18

A picture of your biggest insecurity.

I have honestly been putting this one off for a while. I've probably mentioned this before, but I have a thyroid disease that slows down my metabolism. We first learned about it when I was ten. From that time period on my biggest insecurity has been my weight. I know I'm not obese, or even big. But there were definitely times in my life when I felt that I was. I struggled so much when I was younger with my weight. I would see all my friend and think to myself how unfair it was that they were skinny and I wasn't. Why couldn't I be like them? I would get all into exercising and eating right. Then suddenly I would ask myself why. It didn't matter how hard I tried, I'd never be like them. Because of this my weight has fluctuated a lot over the past four years.

Until recently I couldn't deal with the emotional stress of being overweight, and then not, and then being overweight again. And so on. Now I find it easier to accept that, yeah, I may never be skinny. I may never be a size 2 or even a 6 or 8. But that's okay. The most important thing to me now is just being healthy. Eating right because I feel good and whole afterward. Running not because I enjoy running, but because I have more energy. Don't get me wrong, in doing these things I do hope to be more slender. I also haven't completely thrown my weight issues out of the window either. I don't think I ever will. But I am able to make myself understand that I'm not perfect and neither is anyone else. Comparing myself to others isn't healthy, and no good can ultimately come out of it.

*This picture is from my eighth grade trip to Washington, D.C. I consider this the low point of my self-esteem problems.