Then, one day.

One day, when I was in the first grade, I was playing on the playground at school. I was never very outgoing and I didn't have a lot of friends. A second grade boy came over to me. He looked at me and said, "You aren't pretty." 

As a child, my first instinct was to say, "Yes I am! My momma told me I am!" 

With that, he quickly lashed out with, "Well, she lied." 

As I grew older, his words stuck with me. They took a bigger toll on my self confidence than I would like to admit. Something so seemingly small that happened to me as a child in the first grade impacted me for the next ten years. 

Then, one day when I was a camp counselor, I met a boy who told me he loved me. I thought I was sitting among the stars. No one outside of my family had ever told me they loved me before. For the first time since first grade, I felt like I was pretty enough. Like I was wanted.

Time went on and so did the relationship. Then one day, he spoke four words that cut me deep. "I don't love you."

I felt unwanted, unlovable. I was depressed for the longest time. 

Eventually I figured out how to enjoy just being me. I loved being myself again.

Then, one day, I met an amazing man with a great personality, and equally great looks. I was a second semester freshman in college. I quickly learned about him: his past, his family, his likes and dislikes, his dreams. He made me feel loved, wanted, and important. I loved him more than I ever thought I could love someone. And for the first time in a while, I knew I was good enough. Life seemed to fall into place. We talked about marriage, children, and growing old together. 

Then, one day as we were Skyping, he dropped his head in silence. Then he uttered the words I thought he would never say. "I don't think we're going to work. I don't love you". 

I was more than devastated. I was so heartbroken, I couldn't even cry. It was almost like my heart broke into two pieces, and then a million more. I could feel my heart shatter like glass in my chest. 

Days went by and I tried to hide the pain, but the nights were long. Often times I cried myself to sleep, other times I fell asleep from the pure exhaustion of crying so hard the night before. 

Weeks went by and I still missed him, but the tears stopped. Slowly but surely, I started to be me again. 

With the help of my best friend, I realized I was depending too much on others making me happy, that I had forgotten how to make myself happy. 

Now I am happily single. I enjoy every day. I'm going to take life by the horns. I'm going to keep knowing that I am pretty, I am wanted, and I am loved. 

Then, one day, I'll get make someone else feel the same way.

"Boys can't be sexually assaulted by girls."

When I was in high school I struggled with my sexuality. I never dated, never 'experimented.' My freshman year a female friend of mine asked me out, but I declined because I didn't have feelings like that for her. She said okay, and we continued to be friends.

Before the end of the year she sexually assaulted me, at the school, when nobody was around. When I tried to tell people, they dismissed me and said that I was lying because she wasn't attractive and I was ashamed. And many people said, "Boys can't be sexually assaulted by girls."

Years later I moved across the country and began to move past the trauma of being assaulted. A girl who was acquainted with my roommate came to our apartment and told me that she thought I was attractive. I removed myself from the situation and went to bed, the reminder of what happened last time made me sick. 

Then she forced herself into my bed and I was sexually assaulted again. She said I couldn't tell anyone because they wouldn't believe me anyway.

That will never leave me. 

And even now that I am in a happy, loving relationship I still get a spike of fear when someone reveals that they find me attractive.
 

"You are by far the most loving person I know. You're also the most gullible."

When I was 18, I was in a very physically and emotionally abusive relationship. He moved into my apartment, took over my life, got me pregnant, then left.

I moved back home with my parents and went back to school. I got an awesome job, and my son and I moved out on our own. We were doing fairly well. 

Then when I was 22, I got pregnant again. My boyfriend said, "Get an abortion and I'll stay. Keep it and I'm gone." 

I was crushed. I didn't get an abortion with my first child back when my life was a wreck, so why would I do it now? So he moved literally across the country. And I was, yet again, left pregnant and alone.

After I had my second son, the boys and I met with my best friend for lunch. I was having a rather emotional day and I started to cry. I said to him, "When I love, I love with every ounce of my being, so why do I only find these guys who play me like a puppet?"

He reached across the table, patted my eyes, grabbed my hand, smiled at my four-year-old, looked at my newborn, and said in a soft, sweet voice, "Sweetheart, for as long as I've known you, you are by far the most loving person I know. You're also the most gullible. Anyone can tell you they love you, and you will believe it every single time."

Since that day, I haven't been able to believe anyone who says they love me. Not even him. 

Now he says I need to loosen up and try dating again. No thanks! I've learned my lesson, and the boys and I couldn't be happier on our own.
 

Witch Nose

"Your nose makes you look like a witch, but I'd still date you."

This comment launched the start of what is still to this day my biggest insecurity.

"I didn't want to die alone."

When my ex got out of a long relationship and started dating me, he found himself in a hard place. At the time, he truly believed he was dying of an STD. He told me he wanted to marry me, have a family, the whole nine. 

When I actually wound up unintentionally pregnant, he broke up with me. 

Many months later I asked him why he would say he wanted to marry me, have a family and a home if he didn't actually mean it. 

He responded with, "I thought I was dying, and I didn't want to die alone." 

After all this time, I've healed. I have a beautiful child that I adore with everything in me, and I am thankful every day for my small babe. 

However, that one line has stuck with me. It is the only thing I haven't let go of because it is such a cruel and powerful sentence.
 

"Is she pregnant?"

One day I was at my boyfriend's house watching TV with his family. I glanced over at him and saw that he said, "No," to his uncle. I asked what his uncle had asked him, and my boyfriend responded, "Nothing, babe."

I persisted, and eventually he told me. 

"He asked if you were pregnant."

I felt my heart drop. 

I got up and walked out of the room and cried.

I lost 25 pounds within the next month. I worked out twice a day and hardly ate. 

My boyfriend is very supportive and always has been. He's never made me feel fat or ugly, but whenever I look in the mirror or eat, I hear those words over and over in my head.

New Year's Eve

An ex once told me, "How you spend your New Year's Eve is how you'll spend the rest of the year."

We had a terrible New Year's Eve, and a terrible relationship.

Fast forward six years.

Last night was amazing. 

Happy New Year!
 

"Damn, you're amazing."

For years, since I was a kid, I was ridiculed. Having been overweight and friendless for a long time, I was always the girl in the corner. The girl that never participated in group activities, the girl that never left her house, or always chose to stay in the classroom rather than going out to the playground.

When I was diagnosed with anxiety, nothing changed. Except that a few people started to know who I was because of sudden panic attacks I would get in class.

My parents were always gone, and they didn't even have a clue as to what was happening. And when they found out, they didn't care. They blamed me and told me to get over it, saying, "Life only gets worse."

The years passed and I began to grow close to one boy. Let's call him T. He made me feel in a way happy. The relationship was completely platonic. I started to get terrified that he would grow tired and leave me when I was finally feeling happy. So I began pushing him away. We stopped talking.

I currently attend a university, one I intentionally picked to get away from familiar faces. Except, there was one familiar face. And I didn't mind so much that it was T.

The first semester of college is always the difficult one, some people told me. They weren't wrong. But T made it manageable. One night, when I was alone in my dorm, I borrowed my roommate's scale, fearing I had gained the "Freshman 15." I was right. 

I broke my full length mirror. I cried. I bled. I had an anxiety attack and I trashed all of my food that was in the fridge. 

Someone knocked on the door, and I gathered myself the best I could and quietly announced that I was studying. When I heard a familiar voice say, "Are you decent for me to enter?" I wanted to scream. I was lying on the ground, a hot mess, and didn't want to see anyone.

I replied, "Yeah, but–." I forgot that my door was unlocked, and he stepped inside.

He sat down and held me. He told me something nobody has ever said before.

"Life is not an easy journey, and it sure as hell is not meant to be beautiful all the time. But you are f*cking amazing and strong, because I know you're going to stand up, take a shower and tomorrow you're gonna walk outside and smile at everyone. Damn, you're amazing." 

I started crying, of course, because what he said was more than truth. It was my life for years. Something nobody ever noticed, but I screamed for someone to see. 
 

"No one is ever going to want you."

Being a size 6, I've never thought I was fat, I just knew I wasn't a size 00, which was fine with me. 

But my ex loved to say things like, "How can you still be hungry?" or, "Do you really need to eat that?" or, "Eat up fatty." I had always laughed it off and convinced myself he was joking.

It wasn't until one night that it really got to me. We were eating out and he refused to let me order dessert. He looked at me and said, "You need to stop with the food. If you keep it up, no one is ever going to want you. I don't date fat girls."

Looking back on it, I'm not sure why I stayed with someone so critical and hateful. Maybe it was the feeling that I needed to be accepted by him to validate my worth. 

It wasn't until months later, after I had worked out and starved myself to exhaustion that I realized he was fighting a battle with himself all along, and that there was never anything wrong with me.

Years later, I'm now with a man who tells me every day how beautiful "every inch of me" is. He's convinced I've never had enough to eat, and he always, always says yes when I want to order dessert.
 

"Wow. You're PRETTY."

I have only ever seriously dated one guy, and he has only ever dated me, so I was the first girl he ever brought home.

The first Thanksgiving I spent with his family was about 5 months after we started dating, and it was the first time I was going to meet his extended family. I was fairly nervous, and spent two hours on my hair and make-up. I wore a dress that I had bought three years earlier, but had never worn because I was too self-conscious.

We walked into the kitchen where his aunt was in full whirlwind mode cooking the turkey. My boyfriend got her attention, and she turned around to shake my hand and stopped dead in her tracks to say, "Wow. You're PRETTY."

She said it like it was the biggest surprise of her life. 

Honestly, in the moment, it made me feel amazing. But after reflecting on it, I have never liked her because of that. She didn't think my boyfriend was good enough to have a pretty girlfriend. What the hell does she know.