I had a lit cigarette thrown at me because of the way I looked……….
People in this world can be cruel and it’s hard to see the good sometimes. No matter the age cruel people exist. Their cruel behavior can be completed in so many different ways at so many different ages. Starting in elementary we all have it. Being on the playground in 6th grade and being told I was fat from one boy and that boys hated boobs from another girl were some of my first memories. BOOBS, yep I got them early and they never went away. I remember being overwhelmingly sad. Am I fat? Do boys really hate boobs? I remember looking right back at her with a friend beside me and saying that boys LOVED boobs and walking off……the entire time not really sure about that but it seemed right. As I am trying to understand do boys hate boobs or do they like them….then I have to ask myself……Am I fat?
You start questioning yourself, your body, who you are because of someones else comments and thoughts towards you. They are making you see something different than what God wants you to see in or about yourself. Looking back at pictures yeah, I was chubby just like every other kid in my class going through the awkward stage of being skinny and ugly or fat and cute. You got a curse…it just depends on which weird growth spurt you go through but we all went through them.
Fast forward….lost the baby weight and my boobs kept growing and growing and growing. In Jr. High I went to another school’s football game and girls I didn’t even know threw ice at my back the entire game. Fast forward to high school and people made fun of me because of the car I drove or called me a bitch and I had never even talked to them…..(none of these being people at my own school because they knew the REAL me) The kids at my school were open to me and understanding of me because they knew me, so I thoroughly enjoyed my years with them.
Fast forward to college and guess what….people called me a bitch and they had never even talked to me, they called me dumb sorority girl because I wasn’t dressed in black with no makeup for art class.
Fast forward 6 weeks POSTPARTUM from my first baby boy, age 26 and I went out with a few of my girlfriends to gather my sanity. A girl spit paper from straws at me and then she through a lit cigarette at me. My friends around me went crazy on this girl and the guy with her. She said she was sorry for throwing things and that she was trying to hit me with it. When asked WHY? Simply because…… she is privileged. I don’t like her. After all my friends came to the rescue and got her in her place. I asked them all to calm down. They just stared at me like…….. WHAT IN THE WORLD! WE CAN’T LET THIS GO!
This has been happening to me all my life. I am used to the meanness because of the way I look. People have no clue who the real me is but they take one look and make their assumptions. Because I am blonde I am dumb, because I have large boobs I am promiscuous. Because I am dressed up I am rich. I learned something that night and that is when my outlook began to change.
10 years later and I still have the same assumptions made about me. In fact the original date I wrote this post my husband and I sat down for dinner and I had three women at the table next to us commenting, laughing, and staring at me during our dinner. I can’t change the way people think, I can’t make them be nice and accepting, I can’t make them understand and see that people are different and that’s okay. I can’t control them but I can control me. I learned that night of the lit cigarette that I should stand up for myself on instances like that. No it not right for people to do these things to you and you just keep taking it because that’s how its always been. I have always said you can say I am dumb, I will prove otherwise. You can say whatever you want and I will prove you wrong. Until that day I proved the haters wrong with time, patience, and doing the right thing. I didn’t worry if they liked me or not….. I was me and God made me so I am pretty darn great but I still took pieces of that with me! I knew I wasn’t dumb, I just wasn’t the best at math. I liked using the creative side of my brain more. Over the years I have learned just how differently people see and think. God made me just this way so I either have to love it or sit in this body the rest of my life and hate it.
I chose to love it!
My body has done amazing things for me. I have run 26.2 MILES, I have competed in races and triathlons, I have birthed 3 children, I have danced until my feet hurt so bad that I couldn’t stand, I have laughed so hard and cried so much, I have physically picked up my momma when she was down. My brain has thought through some hard decisions in life, it has helped me obtain a masters degree, and helped me be strong and happy throughout my life. My face isn’t perfect. The boys have hit my nose 1,000 times now and it is a touch crooked. I have wrinkles, sun spots, a messed up eyebrow…you name it. Those wrinkles are mostly from smiling and laughing…a few from worries I have had but mainly joy. That messed up eyebrow is from hitting my head when I was younger. Those sun spots are me spending time in the outdoors with family and friends. That chipped tooth is from me playing with my boys in their room. My face, my brain, and this curvy body that I once hated is now LOVED by me. I am not a stick figure and I am not overweight…I am HAPPY and HEALTHY and I am physically capable and mentally capable of being and doing whatever I want……all thanks to GOD.
I felt I learned another way after that night to deal with this type of person……..
Don’t let what they say affect you even a year down the road. You keep being you. You keep working hard to be the best you! I have a feeling people like that don’t work on being better or doing better. Stand up for yourself but also know when you are doing the right thing that time and patience will prove them wrong.
Most of these critics are jealous or envious of you, not all but yes…some are. They think you are rich and they would die to be rich. They see beautiful and they would die to be as beautiful as you. They see happiness and envy it. What these people don’t understand is that all the money, beauty, and material things in the world will never make you happy unless you are truly happy within yourself first. True happiness doesn’t come from materials, beauty, and money…it comes from within.
Learn from them. Learn what they say and how they do it and memorize it…..because you never want to be like them. You never want to hurt someone or put them in that horrible place of questioning themselves.
Don’t judge a book by its cover. The shirt I had on the night the girl said I was privileged…came from Marshall’s on sale and I had bought it 6 years prior as was the rest of my outfit. Just because I look poor or rich, wholesome or promiscuous, loud or shy, pretty or ugly, fat or skinny or whatever else doesn’t mean that I am not an amazing person! Just because I look rich doesn’t mean I am AND if I was rich would that make a different person than who I was? It wouldn’t. I would be me no matter what. So don’t hate a person because of the outward appearance. Talk to them and really try to understand them. We are all different and we won’t like everyone but we can find something in everyone we like. We don’t have to be best friends and we don’t have to tear people down. We can all coexist together if everyone would be open and not judgmental.
Please embrace yourself….all of it…..your body, mind, soul, and spirit and don’t let anyone EVEN YOURSELF tell you that you need to be different. You just be YOU! You won’t be accepted into all the groups….the cool group doesn’t matter. Find the TRUE group. That is was you surround yourself with. Positive, open, and understanding people. You are beautiful…chipped tooth and all. We all have good and bad qualities about us but don’t let judging others and being cruel be one of your bad qualities. Everyone can be beautiful and have flaws on their body. From the artist in me I can always find something beautiful on each person I see…whether its their long silky hair, their eyebrows, a dimple, the way they smile, the way they talk or their conversation skills…..everyone is beautiful because we were made by a beautiful person. Embrace YOURSELF. Your entire body is at work doing amazing things for you each and every day. And one thing I have learned from it all and been told by my mom……Be grateful and appreciate what all you have been given and what all you are capable at working towards and don’t let anyone make you think differently. You are ENOUGH! You are AMAZING! You are CAPABLE! You are BEAUTIFUL!
XOXO
Rivers
