01/17/2023
How the years have flown in these pictures. I look back now and wonder what ever made me hate the way I looked. I wasn't really bullied but I felt like an outcast. Now see, I'm going to get vulnerabel here and really open up. This first picture was one I found from a while ago on my senior night back in the fall of 2016 and I remember thinking " gosh I was so tiny." looking at me now, you wouldn't think these are the same people, but back then I thought I was fat here and grotesque and there were parts of me that if I could cut off with scissors, I would have. I would cinch in my waist with an ace bandage just to appear skinnier that I really was. In the second picture was my senior homecoming. Underneath the Cinderella like frills I was so timid and hiding the fact that I hadn't eaten anything over 700 calories. I was terrified of what people would say about me behind my back, my little imaginative spark dimmed by society's grasp on my waist size and thigh gap.
In the third picture, you'll see a little thirteen year old girl with slicked back dirty blonde hair and khaki shorts who wanted nothing more than to roll around in the dirt with the boys, wrestling a ball from their arms. The little girl that would run around in a red cape with a Mickey Mouse lightsaber thinking that I was going to save Prince Caspian. I might be outing myself a litle bit here, but that's what I call IMAGINATION.
I say all that to say this: society is harsh, it's hurtful and the unreal standards have taken its toll on every demographic, it killed my imagination and almost killed me. But, you see, I'm still here and I've reclaimed what was mine by telling societal standards to go somewhere else. As Miss America titleholders we weren't chosen because we fit a mold, we were chosen because we broke it.
So next time, you see someone that you might think fits into society better than you, remember that you were made to make this world a more colorful and wonderful place. Fix your crown, queen/king, don't let it fall.
