Hi,
I’m Olivia, and I’m a size 4, comfortably a size 6. Growing up I was
always this super duper skinny lanky kid, I was always the tiniest. When I was
in fourth grade we were having what I
guess what you could call an “in school physical” a doctor came in and took our
weight, height, blood pressure, and all that jazz. I was waiting in line with
my best friend at the time, Caroline. She too was somewhat of a stick bug. We
were messing around and goofing off, she went before me and was marked down for
48 pounds. To my knowledge, the last time I checked, which wasn’t often, and if
I ever did check it was just for my curiosity, I was around 45 pounds. The
woman told me I was 4’11 and 50 pounds. She announced it loud enough for the
entire line to hear. I was 50 pounds. This was the first time in my entire life
I was horrified about the reality of my weight, and extremely self-conscious of
my body. I broke 50 pounds! That’s almost 60 which is basically 70 which means
I was just shy of 100 pounds! Now of course, as I’m recalling this memory, 50
pounds is literally NOTHING but just go with it, this is fourth grade me
talking… I was absolutely mortified.
I’ve grown up with an incredibly stunning sister and a mom who practically used
to be a super model, her sister was a model as well, and so was my dads sister, it wouldn’t be
far fetched to say that there is definitely a standard of beauty in my family
that comes with a pressure to uphold it. When I learned that day that I was 50
pounds I felt like I let everyone down. I was no longer this little waif,
fairy, pixie creature that was cute and beautiful, I was 50 pounds. Days went
by, months went by, and years went by where I accepted that my sister Emma was
the beautiful, intelligent one, Saunders, my brother, was the talented, not
only athlete but also artist and a genius, and I was just Olivia. I didn’t
really have a lot to offer.
But
then freshman year rolled around and I was sitting in school with my best friend Ally, while she showed me all these incredible blogs she followed. I
was so completely fixed on how cool the idea of sharing your life and passions
through the platform of media was. So I created my own blog. I wasn’t really
sure what I would blog about at first, so I used our family trip to San
Francisco as a launching point, thinking I’d be a travel blogger, when really I
don’t get out much at all. I thought about being an advice blog, giving people
the Do’s and Don’ts of life, high school, love and what not, but I was 14, had
yet to really experience high school, love was a great big question mark, and
to me, livin’ was sitting in my bed in the dark eating lucky charms while my
mom thought I was asleep, so giving genuine advice was off the table. I was
awful at beauty, and couldn’t afford nice enough make up for the life of me, so
showing people how to master the impossible art of contouring and false
eyelashes was also a no. But the one thing I did somewhat have an eye for (or
so I like to believe) is fashion. I loved being in front of the camera and
yapping on and on and on about clothes, so this was the PERFECT outlet for me
to express myself.
Fashion blogging turned to
be a beautiful toxic thing. Of course I followed other fashion blogs, which
made it hard to accept the reality that there were so many better bloggers out
there, girls who were skinnier, prettier, richer, better with words, more
eloquent, had better photographers, made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. I
tried to tell myself the numbers don’t matter, bloggers I followed would get
hundreds of comments, their instagram posts would rack up thousands of likes
and millions of followers, the dresses they wore were only sold in zeros and
twos, they got money for every post, and a lot of it. I got zero comments, a
few likes, only followers who were my friends or family, shopped at Forever 21
and thrift stores wearing sizes people are for some reason embarrassed to
share, and never got any money. Once again, I was on the 50 pound end of the
stick. Feeling like I’ve disappointed people. I took a bit of a hiatus from
blogging for a while and just got trapped in an even darker hole; I no longer
had an outlet where I could express myself and my interests. And then it hit
me. I don’t blog to show off expensive clothes, or nonexistent modeling skills,
I blog because I love myself.
I love being in front of
the camera, showing off my body that is healthy and happy and full of life. I
love talking about myself and my passions. Then the idea of natural beauty
comes up. Talking about yourself so much sounds so vain and crude, wearing so
much makeup and sharing about everything you do feels unreal and not
genuine. But here’s my two cents for
you, Find what makes you special, be selfish
and do things for yourself, try to forget the haters and dig as deeeeeep
as you can to find what makes you YOU and not the person others want you to be,
be who you were born to be. Natural beauty is something they try to advertise
and sell in magazines, but it can't be bought, you need to find it yourself.
And you WILL, there WILL come a time where you will be powerful and rule your
own world, and love every moment of it. Once you love yourself, and find
what makes you beautiful (in your OWN eyes) it’s that much easier to love those
in the world around you. Sometimes you’ll hear guys be like, “Ohh I’m gunna
take her swimming or to the river on the first date so I can see her with no
makeup and like raw, natural beauty, yeah man” But I’m sorry no, this makeup,
this hard work and talent that is on my face right here took time, and I feel
beautiful with it on. There is no way I am ever going to let some guy make me
feel any less. If you feel beautiful shaving off all your hair and tattooing
stars on your head because it makes you feel like a shooting star in your heart, do
it. If you want to do full on mime makeup because you think it expresses your
inner feelings and makes you feel like a queen, girl do it! Do what ever makes
you happy and confident and feel like your wholesome self, and don’t ever let
someone with more followers, more money, or whatever, get you down. Because you
are incredibly beautiful no matter if you’re 50 pounds or just shy of 300,
learn to love yourself because that is the most important knowledge you will
ever gain.
