Hello everyone and welcome back to Words for Thought! 
Soooooooooo,
with the New Year coming up and with so many people solidifying their New
Year's plans and resolutions, I have decided that I will do the best I can to
make the coming year the best it can be. I want to work on my relationships
with my friends and family and push myself to be the best person and student I
can be. I hope and will do all I can to challenge myself in my music and work
even harder to establish myself even more so as a musician and gain an even
larger fan base. I want to work on my originals and end up with material that I
am truly proud of. Finally - and I don't want to be cliché about this, BUT... -
I want to make my body as healthy as it can be. I have made resolutions in the
past to loose weight and get that oh so desired "bikini body." I
wanted to go on diets and take weight-loss pills just so that I can wear
clothing that models wear and be able to go into Victoria's Secret and buy
thongs that I would feel confident in. After watching the Victoria's Secret
fashion show this year (and for the past few years as well), I know full
well about the pressures young girls go through to be "skinny" a.k.a
"Beautiful."
This year however, even with a ton of advertisements continuing to
promote beauty by weight-loss through advertisements on TV, in Movies, on the
covers and pages of Magazines, through the expectations/pressures from the
Music Industry and so much more, I have decided to ignore these pressures and
do what feels right for me. I know that I have fallen prey to giving into
the "tips and trick to loose ___ lbs. in ___ days," but this year, I
want to go about this particular issue in a completely different way. If I
decide that I want to work on loosing weight, it will be because I truly want
to do so for my health and not because of the pressures of the media. I will
not do it for my family, friends or potential love interests. I'm realizing
that if the people in my life truly love me, they will love me no matter
my size and If I do go on a diet, it will be because I want to make sure
that my health is in tip top shape. I will not try to be society's kind of
"beautiful".
I can see how far i've come because I am able to write this down and I
can say this out loud: I am finding more and more to love about my body.
Of course from societies' impact, I will always find something to fix,
but slowly but surely I know that these "problem sections" will
continue to fade away and will one day be the things that add to me feeling
beautiful.
Finally, joining my sorority Delta Phi Epsilon at Queens College helped make me
more confident in my body. My organization as a whole and my chapter sisters
helped me to start to accept the skin that i'm in. They told me I am beautiful
and showed me that my body does not define me and that only I control how I see
myself. In addition to this, being at Berklee has given me a newfound kind of
confidence. I remember wanting to loose weight because I wanted boys to look at
me. I have always known that this shouldn't be what pushed me to diet and
that if a guy likes me, he will like and accept all of me, my mind and my
curves.
Even with all the progress i've made, I understand why I thought like
this. Throughout the years, kids made fun of me for my weight. I didn't
have a boyfriend all through middle and high school which made me feel like
something was wrong with me. Today I realize that this mindset wasn't right and
if I could tell my younger self anything at all, it would be that I shouldn't
worry about my body. That, the right guy will not care or even notice the
things that I do. I would tell younger me, to focus on finding who I want to be
and what I want to do. That I should not worry about what other kids think or
say because in the end these children aren't worth my time or energy and I
shouldn't spend one second more focusing on them.
At Berklee, I know that I do not look like many of the other girls at school. I
don't wear the kinds of clothes that they do and I have different proportions
and it's more than likely I will have way more curves than them. But what
Berklee has given me is something that I will continue to carry throughout my
life. I've found that if love myself and if I am healthy and comfortable in my
own skin, everyone around me will love me too. More and more often I am
finding that I am not comparing my beauty to the unique beauty of others. I may
never have the body of a Victoria's Secret Model or even that of a typical
celebrity these days, but that is okay. My body is unique. It's not a cookie
cutter "ideal" Hollywood body and that is okay because everyone is
made differently. I've worked so hard to try and stand out so why would I ever
want to take steps to fit in.
For
all of the girls out there reading this, I want you to know that it has taken
me a long time to come to these conclusions. I want you to know that I am still
working on loving every part of myself and that doing this takes time. Know
that if you need someone to talk to feel free to email me. You are not
alone.
Thank
you to everyone who took the time to read this and I hope that you find what
you truly want to accomplish or accept in the coming year. Happy New Year!
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