Separation of the Two: Part One

          I began writing this blog almost four years ago. It wasn’t something I started consciously. It was a random idea to conceptualize the ideas I had amassed in my head. My feelings, my experiences, and opinions were all organized into an essay-like format that gave me some semblance of organization. It’s a platform I use to talk about myself and people who have proven to be important sources of motivation in my life. It will forever be my online journal; something I choose to do when I’m trying to make sense of my life. Any time I go through something complicated this is where I write it all down. I think at times I censor my thoughts and my experiences because sometimes I think it’s too much. Do I really want everyone to know these parts of me? Then again isn’t this supposed to be the place where I write for no one else? It’s the contradicting idea of self that I continuously battle with. At what point is it too much?

            I guess this intro is my decision in a sense. A distinct separation between my socially acceptable self and what I actually feel. It’s time that I get real because I’ve been dancing around subjects without delving too deep. I skate across the surface because it’s so much easier to not offend someone that way. I’m not looking to offend people but it’s my life and I suppose you can have an opinion about it but frankly at this point in my life your opinions mean absolutely nothing to me.

            This blog delves into something that I think is a part of me completely. It’s the way I’ve felt since I was a child. It’s what caused me to have some semblance of social anxiety for a time. It began like any feeling does, from things I experienced as a child. These experiences eventually led to me altering the way I lived my life to make social interactions manageable. Entering any unfamiliar situation, interacting with unfamiliar people became a strenuous activity for me because each time I overanalyzed every social nuance. If you actually start to think about events as they happen in real time it becomes an overwhelming and practically unmanageable occurrence. I began to withdraw in a sense, I dreaded going to new places by myself. I clung to familiarity.

This complex came from somewhere, it was a storyline within my life that began long ago and in a sense “heightened” as I aged. In the fifth grade I started looking at other kids, other girls specifically. They always looked differently than me. I was so aware of people’s hands, they’re slender wrists, and even slimmer fingers and then I would look at my own. Short, chubby, pillows of fat on each knuckle, wrists that were so much wider in appearance than everyone else’s and I would feel less than. I started comparing how thick my legs were to the size of other girls my age. I was stocky, muscular, and wide. My calves were the size of these girl’s thighs. They wore their pink Limited Too shirts and denim skirts that I couldn’t imagine being able to fit into. Realizing I wasn’t traditionally beautiful I completely embraced what I considered to be the “tomboy” side of myself.

Thinking about this in retrospect is this crazy thing. Being 23 now I remember this and I cringe. A 10 year-old having body image issues is horrible. How is it that we’ve let society get to a point where a child can feel inadequate? These feelings didn’t go away as I got older. Any problem that isn’t fixed has wound-like tendencies. A Band-Aid does nothing to clean a laceration; infection overcomes such temporary fixes.

A specific event stands out to me. It was a point where I made the conscious decision to change my appearance. It was in the 7^th grade during my Band class. One of my peers announced to the entire Clarinet section (of which I was a member) that a boy named Evan made a comment about a birthmark I have on my neck. He contemplated if it was a hickey and then questioned who would want to make out with me in the first place. It was at that point my sensitivity heightened.  Any comment seemingly innocent or, not that was directed at my body caused me to internally cringe. I did my best to shrink in the background, to assimilate to everyone else, and to not stand out whatsoever.

I entered high school wearing anything I deemed socially acceptable. Independent thought was kept separate from my appearance. I felt completely alone and continuously compared my size to any and all people I happened to be surrounded by at the time. It was at this point that my complexes heightened, I became so aware of other people and any possible negative observance directed towards me. I found my own sense of style but, I was so completely uncomfortable in my own skin that regardless of how together I seemed on the outside I wasn’t confident in any sense of the word.

It was at that point that I met Emaleigh. She was the first person I ever met to feel the same way I did. I don’t know if her complexes mirrored my own or, they went even deeper but our first connection was over the seemingly eternal struggle we endured to find age-appropriate clothes in our size. We had such completely similar experiences. Family members making insensitive comments, an inane fear of social events that included bathing suits, and the (seemingly) eternal search for a boy who wasn’t embarrassed to be seen with us. This was in essence the beginning foundation of our friendship. As we grew older this foundation acquired more layers but I like to think meeting her was this turning point in my life. A moment where I didn’t feel so completely alone, like it wasn’t all in my head. It made my feelings more real, more legitimate.

This is a potential stopping point so I’m going to press pause. I have so much to say with this blog and it would be overwhelming to put it all in one piece. So this is the end of part/chapter one to my body positivity series. As cliché as it is, stay tuned for the rest of the feels.