body love

For some reason, I remembered something that happened a few years ago. When I used to do gymnastics, I was a lot more fit than I am now, and I was a lot smaller. I'm not fat now, but back then I was pretty unhealthy and emaciated. So I had this bone scan to see how tall I was going to be when I was done growing completely. I was hoping I would be of average height, since at the time I was barely 4 and a half feet tall. That's a lie, it was more like 4 foot 8.
So when we got the results back, they said I was going to be about 5 foot 1.
And I was so utterly depressed about it for so long. I had always been the short kid, and I didn't want to be the short adult. As it was, I looked like a 7 year old when I was in seventh grade, so being feet shorter than the average Joe was a little annoying.
I'm not an adult yet and I'm 5 foot 3 and a half, but I claim to be 5 foot 4. And I'm not extremely elated that I'm not 5'1; in fact, thinking back, I don't know why I got so upset about it. Because if I were 2 inches shorter, I highly doubt that I would care. It hasn't impacted my life to be 2 inches taller than they said.
A lot of times we want to change things about ourselves. There is always something that will bother us about our appearance, whether it's trivial or really glaringly eyesore-ish. Sometimes we can change those things, like changing our weight or with plastic surgery (which is pretty disgusting). And sometimes because of our health, we have to change things about our appearance, whether we want to or not.
But health aside, we change our appearance for beauty purposes a lot more than we change it for real reasons. People color their hair, cut it, straighten it, curl it. We change our bodies with plastic surgery. People are constantly getting Botox injections. Some people with perfect vision get contacts to change their eye color. We tan and bleach our skin. The things we do for "beauty" are pretty over-the-top sometimes.
Because we are too busy worrying about what isn't our favorite part of ourselves. We never think about the things we like about ourselves. I always notice how large and bulbous my nose looks whenever I look in the mirror, or this small lump on my forehead that I got when I was three (long story), or how I'm fairly unshapely and Lego minifigure-esque in body shape. But I don't really ever look at the things I like. I like my hair color and how it gets all different colored highlights in the sun, and I like the color of my eyes. I used to actually want brown eyes like my dad's, but I've grown to like blue.
I challenge you to find something about yourself that you truly like - it doesn't matter if you feel dumb admitting it or if no one else agrees with you - even if you just have one feature that makes you feel special or unique. It can be easy to self-deprecate, but don't be afraid to complement yourself.
There is only one version of you, so there is no one else to compare yourself to. Since there is only one of us, we are all almost like rough drafts - we all have flaws, but we also have wonderful sparks of beauty throughout.